Does my work also receive copyright protection in another country?

If you have created a work in Hong Kong and the other country concerned is also a member of an international copyright treaty, convention or organisation to which Hong Kong belongs, your work will also be protected by copyright in that country. These treaties, conventions and organisations include:

  • The Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works: It introduced the concept that a copyright exists in a work once it is “fixed”. It also enforces the requirement that contracting countries to the Convention recognise copyrights held by the citizens of all the other contracting countries.
  • The WIPO Copyright Treaty: It is a special agreement made under the Berne Convention and deals with the protection of works and authors’ rights in the digital environment. Authors are granted certain economic rights under this Treaty in addition to the rights that have already been recognised by the Berne Convention. This Treaty also deals with two areas that receive copyright protection – computer programs and compilations of data or other material.
  • The Universal Copyright Convention: It was developed by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) as an alternative to the Berne Conventions for countries that disagreed with certain aspects of the Berne Convention but still wanted to participate in multilateral copyright protection. These countries include the United States, most of Latin America and developing countries. Contracting parties to the Berne Convention have also become parties to the Universal Copyright Convention, so their copyrights also exist in non-Berne Convention parties.
  • The Geneva Convention for the Protection of Producers of Phonograms Against Unauthorized Duplication of Their Phonograms: It is an international agreement on copyright protection for sound recordings so that record producers can block imports of counterfeit music recordings and take actions against retailers and distributors who have sold counterfeit music recordings. Unlike the Berne Convention, the Geneva Phonograms Convention provides one formality to obtain copyright protection – copies of a sound recording must be attached with a copyright notice exclusively for sound recordings. The notice should consist of the phonogram copyright symbol (i.e. “℗”), the publication year of the recording and the name of the copyright owner.
  • The World Trade Organisation (WTO): It is an intergovernmental organisation that facilitates and regulates international trade between countries. Governments of these countries use the WTO to establish, enforce and revise the rules governing international trade. The WTO facilitates trade in services, goods and intellectual property among its contracting parties so that a framework to negotiate trade agreements can be provided to these parties.
  • The Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS): It is an international legal agreement between all the member states of the WTO. It establishes minimum standards in relation to the way that national governments should regulate the various types of intellectual property as applied to citizens of other member states of the WTO.
  • The WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty: It deals with the rights of two types of beneficiaries in the digital environment – performers and producers of phonograms. The economic rights granted to performers and producers of phonograms by this Treaty include the right of reproduction, the right of distribution, the right of rental and the right of making available. For more details, you may visit this website.

Most countries around the world are members of these treaties, conventions and organisations. You may find the lists of contracting parties of these treaties, conventions and organisations by clicking on the websites above.

Key takeaways