The Subsequent Development of the Berne Convention, 1886–1971

This chapter examines the changes which have been made to the Berne Convention from its inception in 1886 until the adoption of its last revised text in Paris in 1971. Article 17 of the 1886 Act provided for periodic revisions, and these (apart from the first and last) have occurred at roughly twenty-year intervals during this period: in 1896, 1908, 1928, 1948, 1967, and then, finally, 1971. There was also one minor addition made in 1914, when, at Canada’s request, the UK Government drafted a protocol permitting the government of a Berne Union country to restrict protection in the case of authors from non-Union countries which failed to protect the authors from the Union country ‘in an adequate manner’. Since 1971, developments concerning the Berne Convention have largely happened ‘off stage’, or in different arenas, such as the World Trade Organization (established in 1994). Nonetheless, in this post-1971 period, the Convention has continued to be the centrepiece of the international copyright system and, in many ways, has become even more critical than it was in the pre-1971 period.