Harmonization and the Goals of Copyright: Property Rights or Cultural Progress?

Abstract

Beginning with the Copyright Act of 1976 and continuing through a series of amending statutes, several fundamental changes in the law result directly from the press for harmonization. The pressure for international conformity has altered the means for acquiring copyright, has restructured the term of copyright duration, and has brought new protection under US law where no legal rights previously existed. Under pre-1978 law, those formalities were the inclusion of a copyright notice on published works and registration of the work with the US Copyright Office. Effective January 1, 1996, US copyright protection was restored to a broad range of materials that originated in other countries but, due to noncompliance with US formalities, had lost protection in the United States. Moral rights give artists of certain works the ability to prevent the owner of the copy from destroying it. The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Copyright Treaty of 1996 provides copyright law to protect databases.

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