# USSR archival footage copyright issues? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 10, 2010, 11:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ussr-archival-footage-copyright-issues/556679 "2010-10-10T11:15:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2010, 11:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ussr-archival-footage-copyright-issues/556679/1 "2010-10-10T11:15:43Z")
I know that photos and movies generated by the US government or army are public domain. Whats the deal with copyright on soviet archival footage? Same for Communist China government created footage? Anyone got free online sources for soviet and chinese government archival material? (in course you’re wondering, amongst other things I do video event performances and I want to “repurpose” some footage). ---
**Author:** ![anson2995](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c77e96/32.png) [@anson2995](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/anson2995)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2010, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ussr-archival-footage-copyright-issues/556679/2 "2010-10-10T19:28:30Z")
> [@coremelt](#): > > I know that photos and movies generated by the US government or army are public domain. Whats the deal with copyright on soviet archival footage? Same for Communist China government created footage? Works created by the Chinese government are exempt from copyright. ([cite](http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Copyright_Law_of_the_People's_Republic_of_China)) _Some_ works created by the Russian government are exempt from copyright ([cite](http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Russian_Federation._Law_on_Copyright_and_Neighboring_Rights#Article_8._Works_Not_Protected_by_Copyright)). The Soviet Union not only claimed copyright for works they produced, but they claimed a national copyright for works of many russian writers as well as translations of non-Russian writers. ([cite](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_the_Soviet_Union#Nationalizations_of_works)) ---
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2010, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ussr-archival-footage-copyright-issues/556679/3 "2010-10-10T20:33:20Z")
> [@anson2995](#): > > The Soviet Union not only claimed copyright for works they produced, but they claimed a national copyright for works of many russian writers as well as translations of non-Russian writers. ([cite](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_the_Soviet_Union#Nationalizations_of_works)) Your cite supports only your second claim, not your first. What is the source for your claim that the government placed works that it had created itself (as opposed to appropriated from others) under copyright? The OP may find the discussions and links at [this Wikipedia discussion on USSR copyrights](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:File_copyright_tags/Archive_2#PD-USSR) informative. There doesn’t seem to be any definite consensus there, though. ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2010, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ussr-archival-footage-copyright-issues/556679/4 "2010-10-10T22:35:19Z")
hmm… thats interesting the consensus answer seems to be: “All works published in Soviet Union before May 27, 1973 were not protected by International Copyright Conventions and were thus in the public domain in many countries (in Russia some of these works yet protected).” Not just government works, all works by all authors / creators published before 1973 in USSR if I read this correctly. next question, assume the above is correct, if a documentary is created from pre 1973 USSR footage then I understand the new work is protected by western copyright. However am I free to edit out the original archival material only and re-use that since its public domain? ---
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2010, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ussr-archival-footage-copyright-issues/556679/5 "2010-10-10T22:48:16Z")
> [@coremelt](#): > > hmm… thats interesting the consensus answer seems to be: > “All works published in Soviet Union before May 27, 1973 were not protected by International Copyright Conventions and were thus in the public domain in many countries (in Russia some of these works yet protected).” No it isn’t. Read the rest of the discussion, particularly the rebuttals and links posted by 172.180.228.181. ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2010, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ussr-archival-footage-copyright-issues/556679/6 "2010-10-10T23:00:48Z")
> [@psychonaut](#): > > No it isn’t. Read the rest of the discussion, particularly the rebuttals and links posted by 172.180.228.181. Ok. well the work I am talking about is a USSR government work created before 1973 and I’m talking about using in Australia. As I understand it that should be fine. ---
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2010, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ussr-archival-footage-copyright-issues/556679/7 "2010-10-10T23:26:47Z")
> [@coremelt](#): > > > [@psychonaut](#): > > > > No it isn’t. Read the rest of the discussion, particularly the rebuttals and links posted by 172.180.228.181. > > Ok. well the work I am talking about is a USSR government work created before 1973 and I’m talking about using in Australia. As I understand it that should be fine. Well, given that one of the arguments raised on that page, quoted from the University of Arizona, was that “materials published in the USSR before 1973 MAY STILL BE PROTECTED in other countries,” I’m not sure how you arrived at your understanding. If you want to be quite sure that what you’re doing is legal, you need first to determine the current copyright holder of all the clips you plan on using (itself a potentially massive undertaking), and secondly to consult a copyright lawyer—probably one that specializes in international copyright issues. On the other hand, if you’re fairly confident the USSR government created the material, are not particularly bothered about legal issues, and don’t expect your work to achieve widespread commercial success, you can probably go ahead and use the material with impunity. It’s highly unlikely the government of the Russian Federation (or whichever post-Soviet state inherited the copyrights to the material you plan on using) is going to notice or bother pursuing legal action against use of some material in some ephemeral Australian event with modest attendance. Note that I am _not_ advocating that you actually break the law; I’m just telling you that your chances of being caught are vanishingly small. ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2010, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ussr-archival-footage-copyright-issues/556679/8 "2010-10-11T00:50:53Z")
The current project I have in mind is ephemeral so would not be any issue, however I’d like to know a more definate answer, eg for the documentary “Tank on the Moon” they make extensive use of soviet government archival footage: [http://science.discovery.com/tv/tank/tank.html](http://science.discovery.com/tv/tank/tank.html) This is a commercially available documentary so the issue of copyright ownership of the footage must have been solved and many other documentaries have used similar Soviet footage so the answer must have been definately settled at some point. Is there a way we can find out a more solid answer without hiring an IP lawyer, I don’t have a budget for that right now. ---
**Author:** ![anson2995](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c77e96/32.png) [@anson2995](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/anson2995)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2010, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ussr-archival-footage-copyright-issues/556679/9 "2010-10-11T03:14:20Z")
> [@psychonaut](#): > > > [@anson2995](#): > > > > The Soviet Union not only claimed copyright for works they produced, but they claimed a national copyright for works of many russian writers as well as translations of non-Russian writers. ([cite](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_the_Soviet_Union#Nationalizations_of_works)) > > Your cite supports only your second claim, not your first. What is the source for your claim that the government placed works that it had created itself (as opposed to appropriated from others) under copyright? In that same article it says: > [@](#): > > Employees for the first time were granted a copyright on works they created as part of their duties, but their right to remuneration was limited to their salary. [snip] > Examples of such corporate copyright ownership included …film studios, who owned the copyrights on movie scripts and the movies they produced, or also the news agencies TASS which was on January 15, 1935, granted the copyright on all the information it disseminated. The point being that many of these corporate copyright holders (and sources of archival material) were de facto government agencies. But I offered that comment only for historical purposes. What’s relevant to the OP is the copyright status of those works now, regardless of what copyright law might have been in the past. ---
**Author:** ![Willibald](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/9de0a6/32.png) [@Willibald](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Willibald)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2017, 9:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ussr-archival-footage-copyright-issues/556679/10 "2017-02-02T09:10:39Z")
[quote=“anson2995, post:2, topic:556679”] Works created by the Chinese government are exempt from copyright. ([cite](http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Copyright_Law_of_the_People's_Republic_of_China)) The cite is only to China Copyright Law, wich does not seem to contain such a provision. Still, I have heard that claim before, especially for works created before China entered the Berne Convention in 1992. Any idea where I could find more on this?