The Buenos Aires Convention (Third
Pan-American Convention
The Conferences of American States, commonly referred to as the Pan-American Conferences, were meetings of the Pan-American Union
The Organization of American States (OAS; es, Organización de los Estados Americanos, pt, Organização dos E ...
) is an
international copyright treaty signed in
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires ( or ; ), officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires ( es, link=no, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires), is the capital and primate city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata, on South ...
, Argentina, on 11 August 1910, providing mutual recognition of
copyright
A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, educatio ...
s where the work carries a notice containing a statement of
reservation of rights (Art. 3). This was commonly done with the phrase "
All rights reserved
"All rights reserved" is a copyright formality indicating that the copyright holder ''reserves'', or holds for its own use, all the rights provided by copyright law. Originating in the Buenos Aires Convention of 1910, it is unclear if it has any ...
" ( es, Todos los derechos reservados; pt, Todos os direitos reservados) next to the
copyright notice
In United States copyright law, a copyright notice is a notice of statutorily prescribed form that informs users of the underlying claim to copyright ownership in a published work.
Copyright is a form of protection provided by US law to author ...
. This implementation varied as
US law
The law of the United States comprises many levels of codified and uncodified forms of law, of which the most important is the nation's Constitution, which prescribes the foundation of the federal government of the United States, as well as va ...
only required the author and year of publishing. Copyright protection under the convention is granted for the shorter of the terms of the protecting country and the source country of the work ("
rule of the shorter term
The rule of the shorter term, also called the comparison of terms, is a provision in international copyright treaties. The provision allows that signatory countries can limit the duration of copyright they grant to foreign works under national tre ...
", Arts. 6, 7). The rather vague nature of the requirement for a statement of reservation led to the development of longer and more legalistic wordings, which have persisted despite the developments in
international copyright law
While no creative work is automatically protected worldwide, there are international treaties which provide protection automatically for all creative works as soon as they are fixed in a medium. There are two primary international copyright agreem ...
.
The convention is specifically retained by the
Universal Copyright Convention
The Universal Copyright Convention (UCC), adopted in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1952, is one of the two principal international conventions protecting copyright; the other is the Berne Convention.
The UCC was developed by the United Nations Educati ...
(UCC) of 6 September 1952 (Art. 18 Geneva Act), with the most recent formulation taking precedence in case of conflict. As the Buenos Aires Convention was not modified, the presence of a simple copyright notice was sufficient to ensure mutual recognition of copyright between countries which became parties to the UCC (which only
Honduras never did). As of , all parties to the Buenos Aires Convention are also parties to the
Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, which provides for mutual recognition of copyright without any
formalities (Art. 5.2 Berne).
The Buenos Aires Convention became a "special agreement" in the terms of Article 20 of the Berne Convention. It remains in force, notably for determining the source country of a work and hence the term of protection which is applicable in countries which apply the "rule of the shorter term": when a work is simultaneously published in a Convention State and a non-Convention State, the Convention State will be taken to be the source country regardless of the term of protection in the non-Convention State.
''Sources'':
U.S. Copyright Office
The United States Copyright Office (USCO), a part of the Library of Congress, is a United States government body that maintains records of copyright registration, including a copyright catalog. It is used by copyright title searchers who are ...
,
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...
,
WIPO
The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO; french: link=no, Organisation mondiale de la propriété intellectuelle (OMPI)) is one of the 15 specialized agencies of the United Nations (UN). Pursuant to the 1967 Convention Establishin ...
References
Geneva Act of the Universal Copyright Convention done at Geneva, 1952-09-06.
(Paris Act), as amended on 1979-09-28.
# The United States has never applied the rule of the shorter term: all copyright works are protected for the normal U.S. term of copyright.
# The United States deposited its Instruments of Ratification with the Government of Argentina on 1911-05-01, and hence the treaty came into force with respect to the other parties three months after that date (Art. 16). The treaty was not proclaimed in the United States until 1914-07-13.
#
International Copyright Relations of the United States, U.S. Copyright Office Circular No. 38a, August 2003.
Parties to the Geneva Act of the Universal Copyright Conventionas of 2000-01-01: the dates given in the document are dates of ratification, not dates of coming into force. The Geneva Act came into force on 1955-09-16 for the first twelve to have ratified (which included four non-members of the Berne Union as required by Art. 9.1), or three months after ratification for other countries.
Parties to the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Worksas of 2006-05-30.
External links
{{wikisource, Buenos Aires Convention
Text of the Convention
Intellectual property treaties
History of Buenos Aires
Copyright treaties
Treaties concluded in 1910
Treaties entered into force in 1914
Treaties of Argentina
Treaties of Bolivia
Treaties of the First Brazilian Republic
Treaties of Chile
Treaties of Colombia
Treaties of Costa Rica
Treaties of the Dominican Republic
Treaties of Ecuador
Treaties of Haiti
Treaties of Guatemala
Treaties of Honduras
Treaties of Nicaragua
Treaties of Mexico
Treaties of Panama
Treaties of Paraguay
Treaties of Peru
Treaties of the United States
Treaties of Uruguay
1910 in Argentina
1910s in Buenos Aires