Do most US authors still only enjoy a copyright term of life plus 50 in the EU?

Robert Brauneis (The George Washington University), Do most US authors still only enjoy a copyright term of life plus 50 in the EU? Verschenen op Kluwer Copyright Blog, 27 januari 2014.

"Article 7(1) of the Copyright Term Directives provides that “[w]here the country of origin of a work, within the meaning of the Berne Convention, is a third country, and the author of the work is not a Community national, the term of protection provided by the Member States shall expire on the date of expiry of the protection granted in the country of origin of the work [as long as it doesn’t exceed the term granted in the EU.]” Supporters of term extension in the United States argued that if a work’s country of origin were the US, the author were a US national, and the US only protected works for life plus 50, Article 7(1) would limit the work’s protection to life plus 50 in the EU. The EU Directives’ approach is explicitly sanctioned by Article 7(8) of the Berne Convention, which creates an exception to national treatment for copyright term – the so-called “Rule of the Shorter Term.”

In 1998, of course, the US did retroactively extend its term to life plus 70. Does that mean that US works all now get life plus 70 in the EU? Quite possibly not. How could that be? The short answer: Berne Article 5(4)(a) and Canada. The Copyright Term Directives explicitly incorporate the Berne Convention’s definition of “country of origin.” Under Berne Article 5(4)(a), when a work is “published simultaneously in several countries of the Union which grant different terms of protection,” the country of origin is deemed to be that “whose legislation grants the shortest term of protection.” Canada has thus far resisted calls to lengthen the term of copyright beyond the Berne minimum of life plus 50. The upshot would appear to be that if a work is published simultaneously in the United States and Canada (and under Berne Article 3(4), “simultaneously” actually means “within thirty days”), its country of origin for purposes of Article 7(1) of the EU Directives and Article 7(8) of the Berne Convention is Canada, and the term of protection the work will get in the EU is Canada’s term, life plus 50. The Copyright Term Directives explicitly protect authors who are EU nationals from this truncation of term, but US authors are not so protected.

Of course, US authors only lose that 20 years of EU copyright term if they publish simultaneously in Canada (or any of the other countries that still stick with the Berne minimum, like Turkmenistan and Tuvalu . . . but Canada is the important one). Yet I have not yet been able to find a commercially significant work by a US author that is not simultaneously published in the US and Canada."

Lees hier meer.