by D. Vogt

Created on: August 06, 2010

The Berne Convention, officially the Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, is one of the oldest international treaties spelling out intellectual property protections for copyrighted works. It was signed in 1886 in Berne, Switzerland.

- History and Negotiation -

The Berne Convention was the product of a public campaign by the French International Literary and Artistic Association (ALAI), an organization founded several years before by Romantic writer Victor Hugo to call for stronger legal protections for writers. Copyright laws were not a new invention during the 1880s: indeed, in America, the foundations of both copyright and patent law is enshrined in Article I of the Constitution. However, at the time copyright laws were simply a lengthy series of national legislative initiatives. Not only did the specifics of these laws differ in varying countries, but it was understandably difficult to enforce one's copyright privileges in foreign countries. A French work, for instance, would be protected by French copyright law only in France, but not in neighbouring Germany or Britain.

The 1880s, however, saw intellectual property law go international. In 1883, the Paris Convention provided an international legal framework for creating and enforcing patents and trademarks, the other two major protective tools for intellectual property. (Respectively, patents enforce ideas and trademarks protect expressions used in trade.) The Berne Convention, which followed in 1886, extended the same principles to copyright protection.

The Convention was widely accepted at the time, but implemented only piecemeal. It took over a century for Britain to come into full compliance with its obligations under the treaty. The United States refused to sign the treaty at all, but did sign a modified Universal Copyright Convention negotiated after World War II. In 1989, the U.S. finally ratified the century-old treaty. Today over 160 countries have signed the treaty. Similar provisions are enforced among World Trade Organization members by the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement negotiated during that organization's Doha Round, and since the 1990s similar principles have been applied to the Internet and new media forms by another international organization with similar objectives, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).

- Principles -

Several copyright principles were enshrined in the Berne Convention. First, all signatory

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