Rule of The Shorter Term - Universal Copyright Convention

Universal Copyright Convention

In the Universal Copyright Convention, the comparison of terms is spelled out in article IV(4)(a), which reads:

No Contracting State shall be obliged to grant protection to a work for a period longer than that fixed for the class of works to which the work in question belongs, in the case of unpublished works by the law of the Contracting State of which the author is a national, and in the case of published works by the law of the Contracting State in which the work has been first published. — UCC, article IV(4)(a).

Addressing concerns of the Japanese delegation, the conference chair clarified that this subsumed the case of classes of works that were not copyrightable at all in their country of origin (as specified), as these would have a copyright term equal to zero. Thus other countries would not be obliged to grant copyright on such foreign works, even if similar domestic works were granted copyright.

The application of article IV(4)(a) is not mandatory: "not being obliged to" is not equivalent to "being obliged not to".