The Berne convention is an important document and one I’ve touched on a few times. It offers a great deal of international guidance as to what is copyrighted, what protections are afforded by copyright law and it provides a set of minimum standards for countries to follow that are, in turn, enacted in to each individual nation’s code.

The problem with the convention is that, while it’s important, it was drafted in the seventies, well before the advent of the Internet as we know it.

Also, the treaty doesn’t deal much with procedures, only protections. You know, roughly, what protections your work has but learning enforcing those rights can still be tricky.

Finally, many member nations haven’t implimented all of the requirements of the treat. The U.S., for example, is yet to enforce Moral Rights though it’s mandated by the treaty.

The hope is that WIPO, the World Intellectual Property Organization, will help provide some standards of copyright enforcement.

That, most likely, is a long way off though.

Matthijs,

My main problem with the language barrier is that it can be hard to find where to send the complaint to. Even if the person can read English, the challenge of finding their email address on a French or German site can be overwhelming.