What is the Berne Convention?

The Berne Convention is an international copyright treaty that establishes minimum standards for copyright protection in the countries that are signatories to it. It was first negotiated in 1886 in Switzerland and signed by the United States in 1989. The treaty is administered by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). The Berne Convention sets out a number of significant rights for the creators of copyright-protected works. Most importantly, it requires each signatory country to protect works of authorship that originate in other countries that are also signatories to the treaty. This is known as the “national treatment” provision. This means that a work created in one country that is a signatory to the Berne Convention will be given the same copyright protection when it is published in another signatory country. The Berne Convention also provides for the protection of moral rights, which allow the creator of a work to control how that work is used and to receive recognition for it. Additionally, the Berne Convention includes the idea-expression dichotomy, which states that copyright protects the expression of an idea, not the idea itself. This means that copyright law does not provide exclusive rights to ideas, only to their expression. In the United States, all of these unique aspects of the Berne Convention have been incorporated into the Copyright Act of 1976. In Washington, copyright law is based on the Copyright Act and is also affected by the Berne Convention. Thus, Washington residents should be aware of the Berne Convention and its implications for copyright law.

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What is the Berne Convention?

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