Copyright in Russia developed originally along the same lines as in Western European countries. A first copyright statute dated back to 1828, and in 1857, a general copyright term of fifty years was instituted. The copyright law of 1911 was inspired by Western laws of the continental European tradition. One noteworthy exception in Russian copyright law was the "freedom of translation"—any work could be freely translated into another language.
Under the Soviet Union, the copyright law was changed to conform more to Socialist ideology and economics. The duration of copyright was reduced, first to 25 years from the first publication of a work and then changed in 1928 to 15 years after the author's death, before it was increased to 25 years in 1973, when the USSR joined the Universal Copyright Convention. After the demise of the Soviet Union, the Russian Federation at first took over the last Soviet legislation from 1991, which hadn't even become effective anymore in the USSR. In 1993, a new, modernized copyright law of Russia entered in force, which was in-line with the leading international copyright treaties. As part of a project to develop a new Civil Code of Russia, the copyright law was completely rewritten and integrated into the Civil Code in 2006, with the new provisions becoming effective on January 1, 2008.
On an international level, the Soviets pursued until the late 1960s an isolationist policy. While the Tsars had concluded several short-lived bilateral copyright treaties with Western nations, the Soviet Union had no external copyright relations at all until 1967, when it concluded a first bilateral treaty with Hungary. A major change occurred in 1973, when the USSR joined the Universal Copyright Convention. Subsequently, more bilateral treaties were concluded, amongst them two with Western countries (Austria and Sweden). After its foundation as an independent successor state of the USSR, the Russian Federation joined the Berne Convention in 1995. The negotiations about the adherence of Russia to the World Trade Organization (WTO) led to several amendments of the Russian copyright law in order to meet the adherence requirements.
History of domestic copyright legislation
The origins of copyright
Copyright—the idea that an author of a work has rights on the uses and the reproduction of the work—originated in the field of literature. With the inventions of the printing press and of movable type, copies of literary works could be made quicker and cheaper than before, and the works could be disseminated more widely. But the unrestricted rivalry amongst print shops led quickly to the dissemination of competing and unauthorized editions of various works, which diminished prospects of any payment, or even entailed loss, for the authors, editors, and printers of the original issue, and thus discouraged further undertaking. European rulers also quickly realized that the granting of legal monopolies on wide distribution of printed works could be employed for political purposes—not only by themselves, but also by their opponents.Newcity p. 3. The printing business was soon regulated through printing prerogatives granted by the rulers to print shops, authorizing them to print certain works and giving them a monopoly on these works. Such monopolies not only served as a market regulator but also as a censorship device, as they could be revoked if the printed works were not to the liking of the ruler.Patry p. 4ff.
The development of copyright in Russia followed the same lines as in Western Europe, only about a century later.Newcity p. 4. The first printing press was installed in Moscow in the late 1550s with the support of Tsar Ivan IV; the first dated book was printed there in 1564. Printing was strictly controlled by the Tsars and remained reserved mostly for religious works. Tsar Peter the Great was the first to grant printing privileges for printing secular works in Russian to a few select printers, both from Russia and from abroad.Newcity p. 5. Under Peter's reign, the print production in Russia rose tremendously, but except for the printers of the Eastern Orthodox Church, most print shops remained state owned. The first printing privilege granted to a private (and non-Russian) printer for the printing of literature in foreign languages was granted by Catherine II of Russia in 1771 to a printer in St. Petersburg.Newcity p. 6. At the same time, a decree also installed censorship measures for the control of foreign-language works.Elst p. 65. The first private press with the right to print in Russian was founded in 1776, and in 1783, Russian printed works were also subjected to censorship. The events of the French Revolution led Catherine to have most private print shops closed down again; and her successor Paul I prohibited in 1808 the importation of foreign books again.
Copyright in Tsarist Russia
The printing prerogatives granted until then were rights accorded to the printers, not to the authors of a work. The first copyright provisions in a modern sense as rights an author has over uses of his work appeared in the reign of Alexander I, when he issued on April 22, 1828 a "Statute on censorship" (; ) that contained five articles on copyright. This law granted authors or translators the exclusive rights to reproduce, publish, and distribute their works, and recognized their right to be paid for uses or reproductions of their works. Copyright was automatic and was vested in the author or translator upon the creation of the work and without any need for a registration. The law defined a copyright term of the lifetime of the author plus 25 years (25 years p.m.a.—). It also defined a "freedom of translation": any work was free to be translated without the consent of its author, and the translator got a new copyright on the translation. Copyright was extinguished if the work didn't meet the censorship regulations (i.e., was censored).Elst p. 66.
On February 4, 1830, a decree modified these provisions slightly. It defined that the copyright term was extended by additional ten years to 35 years p.m.a. if a work was republished in the last five years of the original 25-year term. In 1845, the Council of State extended copyright to cover also music, and in 1846, works of the visual arts became subject to copyright.Newcity p. 7. Two major changes occurred in 1857. Upon a request by the widow of Aleksandr Pushkin, the Council of State extended the copyright term from 25 to 50 years p.m.a.Prins, C.: Émile Zola receives an Answer: The Soviet Union is to Join the Berne Convention, pp. 238 – 247 in European Intellectual Property Review, 1991. The same year, it also extended copyright to cover works of foreign authors that were first published on the territory of Russia.
An imperial decree in 1897 tasked a commission to revise the copyright law. After nine years of work, a draft that was based on the German copyright law of 1901 was presented to the Duma in 1906. After lengthy proceedings, the new law was passed in 1909 and finally approved by Tsar Nicholas II on March 20, 1911.Newcity p. 8–9. For the first time, copyright was expressed truly independently from censorship regulations. Censorship was not linked anymore in any way to the existence or the exercise of copyrights on a work.Elst p. 70. Elst also points out (p. 67) that the copyright articles had been moved already in 1887 from the police law into the civil law, which can be seen as a formal break of the tie between copyright and censorship.
The 1911 copyright contained 75 articles in seven chapters. It granted copyright to works of Russian subjects and to works by foreigners that were first published on Russian territory. Unpublished foreign works were also copyrighted. Foreign works first published abroad could be freely translated and then published, but publishing such a foreign work in the original language or performing music composed by foreigners abroad was only allowed with the consent of the foreign copyright holder.Newcity p. 9.
Copyright covered literary, musical, dramatic, artistic, and photographic works. The new law recognized the moral rights of paternity (attribution right) and integrity of the work.Elst p. 69f. Authors were granted the exclusive rights to reproduce, publish, and distribute a work, to perform dramatic and musical works in public, to record a musical work, and to produce a novel from a dramatic work or vice versa.Newcity p. 10. These rights were automatic, came into existence upon the creation of the work, and were not subject to any formalities requirements.
Copyright in the Soviet Union
After the October Revolution, the Tsarist copyright law from 1911 remained initially in force, although it was partly invalidated by numerous decrees.Levitsky p. 31. The copyright term was reduced from 50 years p.m.a. to the lifetime of an author. Many works were nationalized, first only works of deceased authors, but later also works of still living authors. The nationalizations of the publishing houses restricted the possibilities of authors to publish their works, effectively restricting their exclusive rights.Levitsky p. 31ff.
On January 30, 1925, the Central Executive Committee passed a new copyright law.Elst p. 74. These "Fundamentals of Copyright Law" were replaced already three years later, on May 16, 1928,Newcity p. 29. by a second version that then remained in effect essentially unchanged for thirty years. In 1961, the copyright law was incorporated into the Civil Law. On December 8, 1961, the Supreme Soviet of the USSR passed the Fundamentals of Civil Legislation, which entered in force on May 1, 1962.Loeber p. 10. Chapter IV of these Fundamentals contained the eleven articles that constituted the copyright law.
In the Soviet legislation, these union-wide Fundamentals (; ) were only a binding framework; the individual republics of the Soviet Union then had to implement the provisions of the Fundamentals in their own republic laws.Newcity p. 29. In the case of discrepancies between any union-wide legislation and the laws of a republic, the federal law prevailed. This basic principle was expressed clearly for the first time in the Constitution of the Soviet Union in 1936, in article 20 of the so-called Stalin Constitution. In the Constitution of 1977, article 74 covered this principle. Although these different versions of the law differed in some details, the basic characteristics of Soviet copyright remained more or less constant throughout these revisions, and also across the various republics' laws.Newcity p. 80.Elst p. 79. Copyright was granted on the creativeLevitsky p. 100ff. works of Soviet citizens, whether published or unpublished. Foreign works were copyrighted only if they were first published in the USSR or, if unpublished, existed in objective form on the territory of the USSR.Newcity p. 53. Copyright was automatic and came into existence upon the creation of the work; no formalities were requiredLevitsky p. 28. (with the exception of photographs, which were only copyrighted if they bore the name of the studio or the photographer, the address, and the yearLevitsky p. 107.).