Formalities (legal)

The ritual or formulaic observances that must take place in certain jurisdictions before a work can qualify for copyright protections, or before suit can be filed.

For example, although the U.S. officially abandoned formalities with its 1976 Copyright Act,it is still the case that a work acquires copyright at the moment of creation, but the work must be officially registered with the copyright office before suit can be filed for infringement. At other times in copyright’s history, copyright was conferred at creation, for a period of years, and could then be explicitly renewed for a second period when the first one expired.

The Berne Convention explicitly forbids formalities. Article 5, Section 2 reads:

“The enjoyment and the exercise of these rights shall not be subject to any formality; such enjoyment and such exercise shall be independent of the existence of protection in the country of origin of the work. Consequently, apart from the provisions of this Convention, the extent of protection, as well as the means of redress afforded to the author to protect his rights, shall be governed exclusively by the laws of the country where protection is claimed.”

However, some copyright scholars and activists believe that copyright is actually too easy to acquire and sustain, resulting in, among others, the orphan works problem. These people advocate for at least some formalities for copyright, most often having to do with renewal, so that a work whose rights-holder failed to renew copyright would fall into the public domain.

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