독일 저작권 보호기간의 진화

Globally, the term of copyright has been steadily increasing since the British Statute of Anne in 1710 stipulated that the copyright endures for a term of 14-28 years from the date of first publication. The legislation that has drawn attention in relation to the extension of the term of copyright protection is the U.S. Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 (CTEA), which extended the terms of copyrights to life of the author plus 70 years, but it is not known that such a law is historically originated in Germany. Germany has historically played a leading role in extending the term of protection for copyrighted works. Copyright-related regulations in German region did not explicitly stipulate the term of protection for copyrighted works until the end of the 18th century, and in fact it seemed to have allowed the publisher to have a permanent reprinting right. It was not until the beginning of the 19th century that the Baden printing provisions of 1806 and the Baden Statute Book of 1809 were introduced to the German region that limited the duration of copyright protection, under which the term of protection was stipulated as the life of the author plus one year and the life of the author. In the 1837 Act, Prussia prescribed the term of protection as 30 years after the author’s death, the longest among major European countries, and this regulation was accepted when the German Empire was unified in 1871. The Berne Convention adopted a protection term of 50 years after the author’s death as an arbitrary provision in 1908. This provision was transposed to a mandatory provision by the 1948 Treaty of Brussels. The Nazi regime accepted the provision in 1934, which was before the adoption of the mandatory provision. In addition, the 1965 law introduced a protection term of 70 years after the author’s death. This criterion was introduced with a view to strengthening the author’s rights, and is significant in that it is currently adopted by major countries. The history of German copyright law has important implications in that it provides an explanation of two major issues related to the term of copyright protection. First, unlike other intellectual property rights such as patent, it remains unclear as to why copyright protection is related to the life of the author. Brauer, who participated in the legislation of the Baden Statute Book (1809), stated that the term of copyright protection for Baden was influenced by French legislations. French copyright laws in 1791 and 1793 stipulated that the copyrighted works were protected for a term of the life of the author plus 5 or 10 years, respectively. In particular, Brauer provided a justification that when the author dies, the work containing his thoughts and personalities disappears as well. Second, there is a question about the logical basis of the protection term of 70 years after the author’s death. This criterion was introduced with the intention to strengthen the author’s rights. It is explained that 50 years after the author’s death was extended to 70 years after the author’s death as a compromise for the claim that the copyright protection period must be made permanent like the other property rights.