From: Sandy Thatcher <[log in to unmask]> Date: Tue, 30 Sep 2014 23:38:33 -0500 Yes, you're right, I had forgotten that the retroactivity applied to more than just foreign works that had failed to comply with US formalities (like notice and registration). Russia joined the Berne Convention in 1995, a year before the 1996 law providing for retroactivity came into effect, and thus rendered itself an "eligible country" under the new law. Interestingly, while Russian works published before 1973 thus became eligible for protection again, Russia did not--at least for a while--consider foreign works published before 1973 to be under copyright in Russia. For this peculiarity and other illuminating discussion of the law, see Wikipedia's article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_copyright_relations_of_Russia Sandy Thatcher From: "Pilch, Janice T" <[log in to unmask]> Date: Tue, 30 Sep 2014 02:27:25 +0000 Getting to messages in reverse- Sandy, this is no longer true. The 1973 dividing line that previously separated Soviet works that were in the public domain in the U.S. and copyright-protected in the U.S., based on UCC membership, is no longer in effect. On January 1, 1996 copyright restoration went into effect in the U.S. under the Uruguay Round Agreements Act that required the U.S. to restore copyright to foreign works previously in the public domain in the U.S. due to lack of national eligibility, and for other reasons, in compliance with Article 18 of the Berne Convention. Beginning on that date, vast numbers of Soviet works previously in the public domain in the U.S. gained copyright protection in the U.S. for the full U.S. term. It has been difficult for many scholars of Slavic studies to realize this and some publishers are still unaware, but it's absolutely the case. Due diligence involves determining whether the work was protected in the country of origin on the date that copyright restoration went into effect for that country- and thus the copyright laws of the post-Soviet nations comes into play. I have written extensively on this topic but will point you to the most recent article which has references to earlier articles- you can find this in JSTOR among other sources: Janice T. Pilch, "U.S. Copyright Relations with Central, East European, and Eurasian Nations in Historical Perspective," Slavic Review, Vol. 65, No. 2 (Summer 2006), pp. 325-348. This news typically comes as a shock to people but it 's a situation that has existed for 18 years. Best, Janice T. Pilch Copyright and Licensing Librarian Rutgers University Libraries Email: [log in to unmask] ________________________________________ From: Sandy Thatcher <[log in to unmask]> Date: Sun, 28 Sep 2014 19:08:34 -0500 The USSR didn't join the Universal Copyright Convention until May 1973, so everything Russian from prior to that date can be treated under our law as being in the public domain. Sandy Thatcher