united-states copyright
Are Soviet movies from the 1970&#39;s copyrighted in United States?
<p>I was looking to watch a Soviet movie from the 1970's (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow-Cassiopeia" rel="nofollow">Moscow-Cassiopeia</a>, nothing with much communist propaganda, just a teen comedy). I thought that this movie would be only possible to find through torrent sites, but I was surprised to see it for sale on <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie/moscow-cassiopeia/id1062868381" rel="nofollow">iTunes</a>. Who would be Apple licensing this movie from? There was an embargo against Soviet Union during the 1980's, wouldn't have this disabled any copyright from before this embargo?</p>

<p>The Soviet Union generally had <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_copyright_relations_of_Russia" rel="nofollow">no copyright treaties</a> with the western world before 1973. So, anything before then is public domain. The USSR had a policy of public domain and considered anything published to be the property of the "people", including anything published in the west.</p>

<p>Even for works produced after 1973, they would have to be registered for copyright in the United States to claim a copyright here.</p>
