copyright international
Copyright over borders
<p>Copyright law works, differently in different, countries. For example in my locale, Finland,  small code snippets do not qualify as works and thus do not get copyright. Same applies to architectural drawings of mundane nature and same applies to several forms of technical drawings. These are then covered by different laws.</p>

<p>First: Even if i do not get copyright over these entities in my locale am I entitled to copyright in those locales that allow such things? For example in the US many of these entities are possible to put under the umbrella copyright.</p>

<p>Second: If an external entity owns the copyright of something that does not fall under copyright in my region does that mean that copyright does not apply to me? With the understanding that i do not use it outside my area.</p>

<p>The Berne Convention is the treaty that creates international copyright.</p>

<p>The existence and duration of copyright is determined by the law in the country of first publication. If you publish these things first in Finland they have no copyright anywhere; if you publish first in say USA, they have copyright everywhere including Finland.</p>

<p>However, the law for determining if there is a breach is the jurisdiction where the breach occurs. So even though these snippets may have copyright protection in Finland by virtue of first publication elsewhere; their use may be allowed under Finnish copyright law.</p>
