LITERARY AND ARTISTIC WORKS, INTERNATIONAL PROTECTION

Abstract

This chapter discusses the laws on international protection of literary and artistic works. The appropriate legal protection of the results of creative work in the literary and artistic spheres has long been a concern of the international community. The worthiness of this protection was clearly expressed in human rights instruments of the United Nations. The broad international recognition of copyright in literary and artistic works received its first expression in the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works (BC) of September 9, 1886. The second great international agreement to take its place alongside the Berne Convention was the Universal Copyright Convention (UCC) of September 6, 1952. In addition to the Berne Convention and the UCC, there are numerous bilateral treaties in force dealing with copyright protection. There are also 11 American multilateral copyright treaties, concluded between 1889 and 1946, partly between Latin American States and partly between them and the United States. One of these is the Montevideo Convention on Literary and Artistic Property of January 11, 1889, which has also been entered into by a number of European States, including Germany, France, and Italy.