International Copyright

Copyright covers domestic as well as foreign works. Consequently, work created abroad is granted copyright protection in Finland also.

Nevertheless, the international scope of copyright is not self-evident. Whether protection is granted will depend on the country of the author’s residence becoming party to an international copyright treaty. There are a number of such treaties, the most important being the Berne Convention, which Finland became a party to in 1928, and the WIPO Copyright Treaty, the provisions of which have been implemented into Finnish legislation in conjunction with the implementation of the EU Copyright Directive, and which was ratified by Finland in the spring of 2010, jointly with the other Member States of the EU. Such treaties require the contracting parties to arrange copyright protection also for works created in other countries being contracting parties. The starting point for multilateral copyright treaties is the principle of national treatment, which guarantees at least the same level of protection to works created by authors from other contracting parties as is granted to residents of the contracting party in question. When seeking international copyright protection, it is not possible to refer directly to the treaties; instead, the author must employ national protection of each contracting party to enforce his/her rights. If the contracting party has honored its treaty obligations, its national legislation should correspond to the content of the international treaty.

EU directives on copyrights guarantee, in part, a higher level of protection than what would be required by international treaties.