International Copyrights

Copyright protection of your work in other countries is governed by the laws of the particular country in question. If a country has signed and ratified the Berne Treaty then the principles of the treaty will be applied as well.

The Berne treaty is an international treaty that outlines the basic copyrights that all signatory nations will abide by.

The main points are:

• works created in a foreign nation will be treated as if created domestically.
• all artists have the exclusive right to authorize translations, reproduction, performance, and adaptation of their works.
• all artists have the right of integrity and attribution.

The terms of agreement as set out in the Berne Treaty state that copyright for all original creative works set in a fixed medium are automatic and the protection should last for a minimum of 50 years after the author's death. (Excluding photographic and cinematographic works).

Under the Berne Treaty music and sound recordings are protected both nationally and internationally, through copyright and related-rights (or "neighbouring rights") laws in most countries, and a series of international treaties that ensure that creative people and companies are protected in countries other than their own.

National treatment: Under Berne, an author's rights are respected in another country as though the author were a national (citizen) of that country For example; works by U.S. authors are protected by French copyright in France, and vice versa, because both the U.S. and France are signatories to Berne.

The Berne Convention requires that the national law of each member state automatically extends minimum standards of copyright protection to nationals of all other member states.

Most Western European countries, and the USA and Russia, are now signatories of the Berne Convention. Under this agreement, you do not have to mark your work in any way for automatic protection to apply. However, despite marking your work not being a requirement of the Berne Convention, it is sensible to mark your work with the international © symbol, followed by the name of the copyright owner and year in which the work was created. In this way you can be identified as the copyright owner of the work and a person who wishes to use the work can contact you as well as broadly calculate whether the work remains in copyright.

The USA has an official register of copyright works, although registration is not actually needed to qualify for copyright protection in the USA (or indeed any country that is a signatory of the Berne Convention). However if you do register your work you will be entitled to enhanced protection in the USA.

Protection abroad can also arise from obligations in the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement. This forms part of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) agreement and may protect your work automatically. Details of the TRIPS agreement and a list of these countries are on their website.

A list of all countries we currently serve:

The Berne Convention covers 178 of the (approximately) 193 countries in the world, including most major nations.

Check to see if your country is included.

Countries which are signed up to the convention are compelled to offer the same protection to works created in other signatory nations as they would to works created in their own. Nations not signed up to the Berne Convention may have their own arrangements regarding copyright protection.

Afghanistan Albania Algeria Andorra Antigua and Barbuda Argentina Armenia Australia Austria Azerbaijan Bahamas Bahrain Bangladesh Barbados Belarus Belgium Belize Benin Bhutan Bolivia Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana Brazil Brunei Bulgaria Burkina Faso Burundi Cabo Verde Cameroon Canada Central African Republic Chad Chile China Colombia Comoros Congo, Democratic Republic Congo, Republic Cook Islands Costa Rica Cote d'Ivoire Croatia Cuba Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Djibouti Dominica Dominican Republic Ecuador Egypt El Salvador Equatorial Guinea Estonia Eswatini Fiji Finland France Gabon Gambia Georgia Germany

Ghana Greece Grenada Guatemala Guinea Guinea-Bissau Guyana Haiti Holy See Honduras Hungary Iceland India Indonesia Ireland Israel Italy Jamaica Japan Jordan Kazakhstan Kenya Kiribati Korea, Democratic People's Republic Korea, Republic Kuwait Kyrgyzstan Lao People's Democratic Republic Latvia Lebanon Lesotho Liberia Libya Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxembourg Macedonia, North Madagascar Malawi Malaysia Mali Malta Mauritania Mauritius Mexico Micronesia, Federated States of Moldova, Republic of Monaco Mongolia Montenegro Morocco Mozambique Namibia Nauru Nepal Netherlands New Zealand Nicaragua Niger Nigeria Niue Norway

Oman Pakistan Panama Paraguay Peru Philippines Poland Portugal Qatar Romania Russian Federation Rwanda Saint Kitts and Nevis Saint Lucia St. Vincent & Grenadines Samoa Sao Tome and Principe Saudi Arabia Senegal Serbia Singapore Slovakia Slovenia Solomon Islands South Africa Spain Sri Lanka Sudan Suriname Sweden Switzerland Syrian Arab Republic Tajikistan Thailand Togo Tonga Trinidad and Tobago Tunisia Turkey Turkmenistan Tuvalu Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom United Republic of Tanzania United States of America Uruguay Uzbekistan Vanuatu Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of Vietnam Yemen Zambia Zimbabwe