Copyright Law of The Soviet Union - 1961 Fundamentals - Limitations of Copyright

Limitations of Copyright

The 1961 Fundamentals, like its predecessor laws, allowed for a wide selection of free uses and compulsory licenses, subject only to the attribution of the original author of a work. Free uses of a work allowed anyone to use a published, copyrighted work without the original author's consent and without the payment of royalties, while compulsory licenses were those cases where the use was also allowed without the author's consent, but only if royalties were paid. The free uses comprised:

• The permission to create new, creatively independent derived works (article 103(1)). Excepted were only the adaptation of a literary work into a drama or a film and the making of a film from a play, as well as the two inverse cases.
• The permission to reproduce published scientific, artistic, or literary works as excerpts (or even entirely) in scientific, critical, or educational publications (article 103(2)).
• The permission to use scientific, artistic, or literary works in news reporting (article 103(3)).
• The permission to use scientific, artistic, literary, or oral works (speeches) in film, radio, and on television, provided the original work existed already in a form amenable to such use. (article 103(4)).

Among the free uses, the 1961 Fundamentals also maintained the freedom of translation, but the translator was newly required to maintain the meaning and the integrity of the original work (article 102). The Civil Code of the RSFSR of 1964 contained an additional free use provision in article 493 that allowed the reproduction or other use of a published work for personal purposes.

There were four compulsory licenses in the 1961 Fundamentals:

• The performance of published dramatic, musical, and literary works was allowed without the author's consent. Since a performance constituted "publication" under Soviet law, an author's contract was only needed for the first performance of a hitherto unpublished work.
• Previously published works could be recorded by any means for the purpose of public reproduction or circulation of the work without the author's consent. (Recordings for the use in film, radio, and on television were already covered by the free use in article 103(4).)
• A composer could use a published literary work to compose a musical work with lyrics without the consent of the author of the text. When the composition was performed or recorded, the author of the text was entitled to royalties.
• Artistic or photographic works could be used in industrial articles without the original author's consent (and in this case, even his name needed not be given). This provision was intended for the manufacturing of items such as wallpapers or fabrics; it did not permit industrial mass-copying of a work (such as a sculpture).

Finally, the government also continued to reserve the right of compulsory purchase of copyrights, but this right was not often exercised. It was employed mostly to prevent "unjustified enrichment" of the heirs of authors of successful works.