電子郵件1031124b

要旨

令函要旨

According to our Copyright Law from 1944 to 1985, the copyright term for movies is “10 years from its first publication” (“publication” means distribution by the rights holder of a sufficient number of copies of a work to satisfy a reasonable level of public demand). On July/10/1985, the Law was amended (the 1985 Law), and provided for “30 years upon completion of the work” instead. Besides, for your reference, before July/10/1985, a work has to be enrolled at the competent authority in order to be protected by copyright.In 1990 (the 1990 Law), retrospective rules concerning the 1985 Law were added (Article 50-1, Section 1: “For a work enrolled before July/10/1985 and is still valid for copyright protection on the same date, its copyright term abides by the 1985 Law.” And the former part of Section 2: “For a work completed before July/10/1985 and was not enrolled for copyright protection, if it was published less than 20 years, it applies the 1985 Law after July/10/1985 ” ).On June/10/1992, the Law was amended again, and the copyright term for movies become “50 years after the public release of the work”, which is still the same today. A retrospective rule was also enacted (Article 106: “except as otherwise provided for in the Law, for works matches the requirements of Article50-1 of the 1990 Law, if its copyright is still valid on June/10/1992 according to the 1990 Law, it applies the 1992 Law after June/10/1992”).Therefore, for movies prior to July/10/1985, if it matches the requirements of Article 50-1 of the 1990 Law and is still valid for copyright protection on June/10/1992, its copyright term would be“50 years after the public release of the work”. If it matches the requirements of the 1990 Law but its copyright has expired before June/10/1992, the term would be “30 years upon completion of the work”. And the rest would be “10 years from its first publication”.