The Buenos Aires Convention (Third Pan-American Convention) is an international copyright treaty signed in

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires, controlled by the government of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Argentina. It is located on the southwest of the Río de la Plata. Buenos Aires is classified as an Alpha− glob ...

, Argentina, on 11 August 1910, providing mutual recognition of

copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive legal 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, ...

copyright notice In the copyright law of the United States, 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 ...

. This implementation varied as

US law The law of the United States comprises many levels of Codification (law), codified and uncodified forms of law, of which the supreme law is the nation's Constitution of the United States, Constitution, which prescribes the foundation of the ...

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", 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. The convention is specifically retained by the

Universal Copyright Convention Universal Copyright Convention (UCC) is an international instrument which was drawn up in 1952 under the auspices of UNESCO. The UCC was adopted in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1952, and enforced in 1955, is one of the two principal international conv ...

(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 Honduras, officially the Republic of Honduras, is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the west by Guatemala, to the southwest by El Salvador, to the southeast by Nicaragua, to the south by the Pacific Ocean at the Gulf of Fonseca, ...

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,

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO ) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) with the aim of promoting world peace and International secur ...

WIPO The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO; (OMPI)) is one of the 15 specialized agencies of the United Nations (UN). Pursuant to the 1967 Convention Establishing the World Intellectual Property Organization, WIPO was created to pr ...

References

Geneva Act of the Universal Copyright Convention
done at Geneva, 1952-09-06.

# 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 Convention
as 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 Works
as 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