Copyright Law of The Soviet Union - Transition To Post-Soviet Legislation in Russia

Transition To Post-Soviet Legislation in Russia

In Russia, the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Federation passed a decree that made the USSR 1991 Fundamentals effective in Russia from August 3, 1992 on, insofar as these Fundamentals contradicted neither the Constitution of the Russian Federation nor other legislative acts of Russia passed after June 12, 1990, and only on a temporary basis until the Russian Federation would have adopted a new, own Civil Code. The original USSR executive decree for the 1991 Fundamentals, which laid down the transitory provisions, did not enter in force in Russia, though, and the old Russian Civil Code remained in force insofar as it didn't contradict the 1991 Fundamentals. Section IV of the 1991 Fundamentals was thus in effect for exactly one year until on August 3, 1993, the new Copyright law of Russia entered in Force.

That new Russian law had a general copyright term of 50 years p.m.a. and was retroactive, restoring copyright on works on which the shorter Soviet copyright terms had already expired and even copyrighting works that had until then not been considered copyrightable works at all (such as performances, which under the 1993 law were subject to a neighbouring right that had not existed under Soviet legislation). The new Russian copyright terms from the 1993 law became applicable to all works of authors who had died 1943 or later, or to works published in 1943 or later. For authors who had lived and worked during the Great Patriotic War, the copyright term was extended by four years; the corresponding year for such authors and their works was thus 1939. For work first published after the death of the author, the term started at the posthumous publication of the work, and for posthumously rehabilitated authors, the copyright term of the 1993 law began to run with their rehabilitation, making it possible that even older works were placed under copyright again in these cases—examples include the works of Boris Pilniak (executed in 1938, rehabilitated in 1957), Isaac Babel (executed 1940, rehabilitated 1954), or also Osip Mandelstam (died 1938, rehabilitated 1956/1987). Other authors on whose works copyright was restored were Anna Akhmatova (died 1966), Vera Mukhina (died 1953, sculptor of the statue "Worker and Kolkhoz Woman"), Aleksey Shchusev (died 1949, architect of the Lenin Mausoleum), Aleksey Tolstoy (died 1945), and many others. An extreme example is Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita: the work was first published posthumously in 1966. At that time, the Soviet copyright term of then 15 years p.m.a. had already expired as Bulgakov had died in 1940. The new Russian copyright law from 1993 placed this work under copyright again, because the 50-year term was calculated from 1966 on.

The old Soviet law was thus rendered largely obsolete in Russia; it remained applicable only to copyright violations that had occurred before August 3, 1993.