The Copyright Wars: Three Centuries of Trans-Atlantic Battle

by Peter Baldwin,
The Huffington Post, October 8, 2014

In 1989, the United States joined the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works. Established in 1886, the Berne Convention assumed that such works were a form of property and that their creators and owners had a right to protection. Berne required signatories to provide strong standards for copyright and treat authors from all member nations in the same way they treated their own nationals. Over time, Berne expanded authorial rights to adaptations, musical arrangements, films, architecture, choreography, photographs, and translations.