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 | This page documents an English Wikipedia content guideline. Editors should generally follow it, though exceptions may apply. Substantive edits to this page should reflect consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on the talk page. |
 | This page in a nutshell: Copyright status of a work in its home country is often important in evaluating its copyright status in the United States. Nevertheless, a work that is in the public domain in its home country can sometimes be under copyright in the United States and so can not be used on Wikipedia. The English Wikipedia allows works to be hosted here which are public domain in the United States, but not their source country. |
The Wikimedia Foundation that supports Wikipedia is located in California and the servers that host Wikipedia are located in Virginia, so Wikipedia is bound to comply with United States copyright law. However, it is an international project, and many of our users and contributors are outside the United States. The project's aim is to produce and maintain a free encyclopedia, which can be used in any way that doesn't reduce that freedom. Most of Wikipedia's material is original, licensed by contributors under the Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike (CC-BY-SA) and GNU Free Documentation (GFDL) licenses; some of Wikipedia's material, especially images, comes from third-party sources, and some of those third-party sources are outside the United States.
While Wikipedia prefers content that is free anywhere in the world, it accepts content that is free in the United States even if it may be under copyright in some other countries. For example works of the US federal government are in the public domain in the United States and widely used on Wikipedia, but they may not be in the public domain outside the United States. For example, we accept content that is public domain in the US because it was published before 1929 with Template:PD-US-expired-abroad even if it is not public domain anywhere else in the world.
It is not always simple to determine the copyright status of a work first published outside of the United States. To determine the copyright status of a work in its country of origin (and there are at least 192 different national copyright régimes) it is typically necessary to know the date of death of the author, while to determine the copyright status in the United States it is typically necessary to know its publication history and its copyright status in the country of origin, not on the date of uploading but on January 1, 1996.
What follows is by necessity a summary, our interpretation of US copyright law as it affects "works" (images, texts, sound recordings, etc.) that were produced outside of the United States. Wikipedia does not offer legal advice on US copyright law, let alone copyright laws in the other 190 sovereign states in the world. It is the responsibility of contributors to determine that content they wish to contribute is free of copyright constraints in the United States and to supply as much copyright information as possible so that users can judge for themselves whether they can reuse our material outside the United States. It is the responsibility of reusers to ensure that their use of Wikipedia material is legal in the country in which they use it.
This page does not apply to works first published in the United States.
General
A work can be in the public domain in the United States but still under copyright protection in its "source country": this is the case, for example, for Einstein's paper describing the theory of special relativity, first published in Germany in 1905. Any work published before 1929 is in the public domain in the United States, regardless of its source country, but German copyright protection lasts for seventy years after the death of the author (post mortem auctoris or "pma"), until December 31, 2025 in this case.
A work can equally be in the public domain in its source country but still under copyright in the United States: any non-posthumous work published after 1928 by a British or German author who died between January 1, 1926 and December 31, 1953 falls into this category. The copyright term of 70 years after the author's death (which applies to all European Union countries) has expired, but its US copyright was restored on January 1, 1996 by Act of Congress and will run until at least December 31, 2024 (95 years after publication, rounded up to the end of the year).
Works first published outside the United States may be protected under US copyright either through restoration of the copyright or through a copyright that subsists from the time of publication. The case of restored copyrights will be examined first, as it also determines the copyright status of most contemporary works.
Restored copyrights
A large number of non-US works were given copyright protection in the United States by the Uruguay Round Agreements Act of 1994 (URAA) as a result of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). These copyrights are known as "restored copyrights", even though some of the works had never previously been protected in the United States. The countries concerned by this measure are (in practice) either:
- members of the World Trade Organization (WTO); or
- parties to the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works (Berne Convention); or both.
Restored copyrights are governed solely by US copyright law: the United States does not require reciprocality over and above what is required by the relevant treaties. Restoration is automatic and does not usually require registration.
Five-point test
The answers to questions on this page help determine the copyright status. Answering these questions in order will lead to a conclusion in bold.
- Is the source country a WTO member or a party to the Berne Convention? (use this table)
- YES: Continue to question #2.
- NO: Apply the test at "Non-restored copyrights".
- Is the work copyrightable in the United States? Architectural works (i.e. buildings) constructed before December 1, 1990, are not copyrightable in the US. Fashion designs (although copyrightable in France) are not copyrightable in the US.
- YES: Continue to question #3.
- NO: The work is in the public domain in the United States, but may still be under copyright in the source country and in other countries.
- Was the work published on or after January 1, 1929?
- YES: Continue to question #4.
- NO: The work is in the public domain in the United States, but may still be under copyright in the source country and in other countries.
- Was the work published in the United States within 30 days after its first publication in the source country?
- YES: The work is not eligible for copyright restoration. Apply the rules for US works to determine if it is in the public domain in the United States.
- NO: Continue to question #5.
- Had the copyright expired in the source country on the date of restoration? (see table)
- YES: The work is probably in the public domain in the United States, but see "Subsisting copyrights".
- NO: The work is under copyright in the United States, and will remain so until at least 2025. See "Wartime copyrights" for a limited exception.
Source country
The source country of a work is the country in which it was first published. If the work was published on the same day in more than one country, it is the "country which has the most significant contacts with the work". If the work is unpublished the source country is "the eligible country in which the author or rightholder is a national or domiciliary".
Date of restoration
The date of restoration is January 1, 1996 if the source country was a member of the WTO or a party to the Berne Convention on that date. Otherwise, it is the earliest date on which a country becomes eligible for the restoration of copyrights.
Copyright protection in the source country
If the work was in the public domain in the source country "through expiration of term of protection" on the URAA date (January 1, 1996 in most cases) the US copyright is not restored.
Wartime copyrights
Any copyrights that were "ever owned or administered by the Alien Property Custodian" were not restored if the restored copyright would be held by "a government or an instrumentality thereof". Hence the US copyright in Mein Kampf was not restored, as it would have been held by the government of Bavaria. However there are several important limitations to this exception.
Germany
A number of German cases indicate that the copyright in images or graphic works remains with the author, even if the works were produced for official use. All of these German copyrights were extended in period to 70 years pma before the date of restoration, and so the US copyrights have been restored.
Japan
The presidential proclamation instituting copyright relations between the United States and Japan, effective May 10, 1906, is considered to have been abrogated. However, the two countries maintained copyright relations throughout the war and aftermath, so government-owned works that were administered by the Alien Property Custodian should not have been restored. The abrogation occurred on April 28, 1952 per the Treaty of Peace with Japan, but same peace treaty included a four-year interim copyright agreement where the US and Japan gave each other's works national treatment, and that also applied retroactively. Japan timed their ratification of the Universal Copyright Convention so it would enter into effect on the date that the interim agreement expired, April 28, 1956, meaning there was no lapse in copyright relations between the two countries. Works that were at the time protected under the previous law were thereafter protected under the terms of the UCC, not the terms of the earlier treaties.
Duration of restored copyright
The duration of the restored copyright is "the remainder of the term of copyright that the work would have otherwise been granted in the United States if the work never entered the public domain": 95 years from the date of publication for works published between 1929 and 1977, and 70 years from the death of the author for works published in 1978 or later.
Works first published after the date of restoration
These works are automatically granted US copyright protection for the lifetime of the author plus seventy years.
Non-restored copyrights
For countries that are not yet eligible for copyright restoration, the main criterion used by Wikipedia is the copyright status in the source country. These countries fall into three groups:
- Laos and Turkmenistan, which are parties to the Universal Copyright Convention (UCC);
- Countries that have never had copyright relations with the United States;
- Countries whose status is "unclear" even to the US Copyright Office (all of them former colonies).
Three-point test
- Is the work still under copyright in the source country?
- YES: The work can only be used on Wikipedia under the doctrine of fair use.
- Was the work first published in Laos on or after January 1, 1964, or in Turkmenistan on or after May 27, 1973?
- YES: The work is under copyright in the United States, and will remain so until at least 2060. This is true regardless of registration or the presence or absence of a copyright notice.
- Was the work first published in Laos between September 16, 1955 and December 31, 1963?
- YES: The work is under copyright in the United States provided that its copyright was renewed at the end of the first 28-year term. Wikipedia assumes that copyrights were renewed unless we have evidence to the contrary.
- NO: The work is in the public domain.
Subsisting copyrights
In a small number of cases, the application of the test for restored copyright will indicate that the work is in the public domain in the United States when in fact there is a subsisting US copyright that dates from the time of its publication. This situation can arise when
- the other country has long-standing copyright relations with the United States; and
- the minimum copyright term in the other country is shorter than the period between 1929 and the date of restoration (66 years or fewer, in most cases).
Example: The photographs of a Canadian photographer who died in 1943 entered the public domain in Canada fifty years after their publication. As they were in the public domain through expiration of their copyright term on January 1, 1996, their copyrights were not restored by the Uruguay Round Agreements Act of 1994. However, the photographs could have been registered for US copyright under a Presidential Declaration effective January 1, 1924 if they were first published on or after this date: if their US copyrights had been renewed at the appropriate time, they will still be under US copyright until 95 years after their first publication (January 1, 2025 at the earliest). This is believed to be the case for some photographs by Yousuf Karsh (died 2002).citation needed
The relevant US law is Section 9(b) of the Copyright Act of 1909,19 which authorizes the US President to grant by proclamation the right for non-US citizens to have US copyright for their works under the same conditions as US citizens. The section explicitly provides for "works first produced or published abroad". It also implicitly provides for a retroactive effect of the presidential proclamation, though there is no indication from the US Copyright Office20 that any of the proclamations actually had any such retroactive effect that is relevant to Wikipedia.
Three-point test
Check for restored copyrights before applying this test.
- Do you have evidence (e.g. a letter from the agents for the author's estate) that the work is not protected by US copyright?
- YES: The work is in the public domain in the United States. Please provide the evidence, if necessary by following the procedure at Wikipedia:Permissions
- Did the source country have copyright relations with the United States on January 1, 1929?
- YES: The work should be assumed to be protected by US copyright. It should only be used on Wikipedia if it falls within the fair use policy.
- Was the work published on or after January 1, 1929 but before the effective date of copyright relations between the source country and the United States?
- YES: The work is in the public domain in the United States.
- NO: The work should be assumed to be protected by US copyright. It should only be used on Wikipedia if it falls within the fair use policy.
Countries with copyright relations with the United States on January 1, 1929
Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bolivia*, Brazil*, Canada, Chile, China (PRC), Costa Rica, Cuba, Denmark, the Dominican Republic*, Ecuador*, El Salvador, France, Germany, Guatemala*, Haiti*, Honduras*, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua*, Norway, Panama*, Paraguay*, Peru*, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan (ROC), Thailand, the United Kingdom and Uruguay*.
Countries marked with an asterisk (*) had copyright relations as parties to the Buenos Aires Convention. El Salvador had copyright relations as a party to the Mexico City Convention. For Japan, see "Wartime copyrights", for China and Taiwan, see "Chinese copyrights" below. Mexico and Guatemala had copyright relations with the United States on January 1, 1929 but these are not relevant here as their minimum copyright terms are 100 and 75 years respectively and so all copyrights were restored for the appropriate US term on January 1, 1996 by the URAA. Despite the name, Argentina did not join the Buenos Aires Convention until April 19, 1950.
Relevant copyright relations concluded after 1929
- Laos, effective September 16, 1955 by virtue of the Universal Copyright Convention. Laos also joined the Berne Convention on March 14, 2012.21
Chinese copyrights
Both the People's Republic of China (PRC) and Taiwan (the Republic of China, ROC) are eligible for the restoration of copyrights. The dates of restoration are January 1, 1996 and January 2002, respectively. Previously, the United States had copyright relations with China, which dated from a bilateral treaty effective from January 13, 1904. The PRC does not consider this treaty to be binding, but the ROC considers it still to be in force. Neither Chinese government signed the treaty with the United States; both are considered successors of the government of the Qing Dynasty, which signed the treaty. Older works, which were ineligible for restoration because their Chinese copyright had expired before the date of restoration, may be covered by a copyright in the United States granted at the time of publication under the provisions of this treaty.
Unpublished works
All unpublished works are protected by US copyright, regardless of the source country, for seventy years after the death of the author.22
Specific country information
Countries without copyright relations with the United States
According to Circular 38a of the US Copyright Office, as of January 2021, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Iran and Iraq have no copyright relations with the US.3
- Published works originating in one of these countries thus are not copyrighted in the United States, regardless of the local copyright laws of these countries. See 17 U.S.C. § 104(b), quoted in the Circular.
- Unpublished works, on the other hand, are copyrighted regardless of their origin or of the nationality of the works' authors, as long as they remain unpublished. See 17 U.S.C. § 104(a).
However, it is longstanding Wikipedia policy to respect the copyright law of other nations, even if these do not have official copyright relations with the United States. What this means in practice is determined case by case, bearing in mind the goal of being able to freely distribute Wikipedia in the country an incorporated work originates from.4
Dates of restoration and terms of protection
Abbreviations used: pma= after death of the author; pd= after publication; pr= after creation.