History of Copyright: The Berne Convention

Arguably one of the most significant milestones in the development of copyright, the Berne Convention already has 163 signatory parties. Find out about the Berne Convention and other aspects of the history and development of copyright.

Content Jump

  1. The origins of copyright: more than stones
  2. Enter the Berne Convention
  3. Love thy neighbour as thyself: National treatment
  4. When copyright expires
  5. Related Readings
  6. Bibliography
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The origins of copyright: more than stones

Parents sometimes silence their inquisitive kids who ask relentlessly about where they came from by telling them that they popped out from a stone. Well, we’re definitely not going to tell you that copyright, too, popped out from a stone, simply because we’re patient writers who have intellectual honesty (and not to mention a burning desire for those $1500-USD notebooks).

So where does copyright come from, then? We trace the origins of the notion of copyright back to the 14th century. However, the first statute concerning copyright—the British Statute of Anne—really only appeared in 1710. In the statute, it was legislated that authors would be granted copyright for twenty-eight years, following which works would automatically pass into the public domain.

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Enter the Berne Convention

There are two problems with the British Statute of Anne. Firstly, 28 years after creation seems a tad short, doesn’t it? Secondly, only England, Scotland and Wales was under the statute; many British works wound up being freely reproduced in Ireland and the British North American colonies.

Here’s where the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works of 1886 helps. It’s quite a mouthful, but it introduces many important terms for copyright to be implemented worldwide—a landmark event, considering that copyright laws only applied locally before this.

The World Intellectual Property Organization summarises it best: “The Convention rests on three basic principles and contains a series of provisions determining the minimum protection to be granted, as well as special provisions available to developing countries which want to make use of them.”

There are 163 contracting parties as of April 2007.

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Love thy neighbour as thyself: National treatment

The Berne Convention ensures proper worldwide protection of copyright by introducing the concept of national treatment. That is to say, one signatory must protect the copyright of works from another signatory in the same manner as it protect works by its own nationals.

For example, since both the US and Singapore has been signatories of the Berne Convention (the US since 1989 and Singapore since 1998), the US must grant this website the same amount of copyright protection as it grants protection to websites by its own nationals. This applies to the rest of the 161 signatories of the Berne Convention. So there’s no way you can escape attaching that gift certificate if you want reproduction rights for our website!

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When copyright expires

The Convention makes it mandatory for signatories to grant copyright protection to copyright holders for at least fifty years after the author’s death, subject to exceptions depending on the specific circumstances and the nature of work. Countries may also legislate to extend this minimum period of protection the Convention grants as they deem fit.

In ensuring that works would enjoy a minimum level of protection from countries (almost) worldwide, the Berne Convention deserves credit for revolutionalising the concept of copyright since ages past. Three cheers for the Berne Convention!