The Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, referred to as the Berne Convention, is an international treaty on copyright protection, which was formulated in Berne, Switzerland on September 9, 1886. As of July 4, 2019, with the accession of the Solomon Islands, the number of contracting parties to the convention reached 177, and China became a member of the convention on October 15, 1992. The convention provides creators such as authors, musicians, poets and painters with a means to control under what conditions and by whom their works are used.
The emergence of the Berne Convention marks the initial formation of the international copyright protection system. The United States also sent representatives to the 1886 conference. However, because the publishing industry in the United States was far less developed than that of European countries such as Britain and France at that time, it was not beneficial for the United States to participate in the convention, so the US representative refused to sign the convention on the pretext that many provisions of the treaty were inconsistent with US copyright law and could not be approved by the US Congress. It was not until March 1, 1989 that the United States joined the Berne Union and became the 80th member state.
The core of the current Berne Convention is that each contracting party shall automatically protect works first published in other countries to which the Berne Union belongs and unpublished works whose authors are citizens or residents of the above-mentioned other countries.
The Berne Convention is divided into two parts in terms of structure: the main text and the annex, and two parts in terms of content: substantive provisions and organizational and administrative provisions. The main text has 38 articles, of which the first 21 articles and the annex are substantive provisions, and the last 17 articles of the main text are organizational and administrative provisions. The provisions of this convention are relatively specific and detailed, stipulating that the enjoyment of copyright in works does not depend on any formalities (such as registration, submission of samples, etc.), and the protection period is also relatively long.
The annex to the Berne Convention is a special provision for developing countries, which stipulates that developing countries, for the needs of education and scientific research, can issue compulsory licenses for translation or reproduction of copyrighted works within the limits stipulated in the Berne Convention and in accordance with the prescribed procedures. This was added when the Berne Convention was revised in 1971 due to strong demands from developing countries.