CONVENTIONAL MINIMUM IN COPYRIGHT PROTECTION (THE BERNE CONVENTION)

Abstract

Background. Intellectual property rights are present in our everyday lives to a huge extent. Law of intellectual property is generally governed by national law, with general principles set out in international treaties. Copyrights strictly protect only the expression of ideas, not the underlying ideas, procedures, methods of operation, or mathematical concepts themselves. Berne Convention was first signed in 1886 and to this day is one of the most important international treaties concerning copyrights and moral rights.

Objective. This paper aims to shortly explain the basic rights and privileges provided to the authors by the Berne Convention in its present version, i.e. Paris Act of July 24, 1971, amended on September 28, 1979.

Results. Berne Convention provides a „conventional minimum”, meaning that all members must provide at least the rights granted by the Berne Convention to the authors. However, each member can grant more rights to the authors. In article 7 Berne Convention regulates the term of protection of copyrights, which is the life of the author and fifty years after her death. Moral rights, provided in Article 6bis, were added in 1928 and grant the author a right to claim authorship of the work and the right of respect. Article 10 of the Berne Convention provides “certain free uses of works”.

Conclusions. The freedoms granted include possibilities of making quotations and of using the work of someone else to illustrate for teaching purposes. However, in both cases, an indication of the source of the work is required.