“Protection of Copyright in Sound Recordings in Hungary and the United States”

Copyright in sound recordings protects the rendition/performance of the musical composition instead of the composition. Hungary, a member of the EU, used to grant a term of protection of 50 years for sound recordings after fixation, but this has been extended following a proposal in the European Parliament. Under the authority of 2011/77/EU statute, sound recordings have been given an additional 20 years of protection, with the underlying rationale that performers of sound recordings usually begin their careers young, and the original 50 years of protection has not adequately granted protection for the young performers for their entire lives, leading to loss of income. Recordings are only entitled to the 20-year extension in the EU, if they are offered for sale to the public before the expiration of their original 50-year protection duration, under the statute’s provision also referred to as “use it or lose it”. This provision caused a tide of confusion in Europe, and as of now, there has been no official legislative or judicial response, whether what constitutes sufficient “use” under this provision. An interesting case, related to this provision, was a mysterious posting of some old Rolling Stones recordings on YouTube, what many suspect to have been an effort to constitute use under 2011/77/EU, in order to secure eligibility. Hungary ratified the extension and sound recording copyrights are currently protected under Hungarian law for 70 years, beginning with the work’s fixation, in accordance with Code XI.1.(2013) Section 84. §. Hungarian Code clarifies that works first published abroad enjoy identical protection with Hungarian works if the author is from a country that is party to either an international treaty that Hungary ratified, or is from a country that has a bilateral agreement with Hungary. This echoes the national treatment principle of Berne under Hungarian law.

Sound recordings in the US are treated in a more complex manner than in Hungary. Sound recordings published on (or after) February 15th, 1972 are protected by copyright for 95 years from publication date. Sounds recordings created prior to February 15, 1972 are under protection from state law, but due to varying regulations state-by-state, Congress set the latest date for protection expiry as February 15th, 2067, after which these pre-1972 works will enter the public domain. Copyright notices were mandatory in the US until the ratification of Berne, therefore sound recordings that were published without proper notice between February 15th, 1972 and January 1st, 1978 are in the public domain. Similarly, sounds recordings published on or after January 1st, 1978 and before March 1st, 1989, without proper notice and registration, are also in the public domain. However, due to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), that was ratified on January 1st, 1996, foreign sound recordings that were not in the public domain in their home countries as of the ratification date of GATT, could get their copyrights restored in the US, meaning that foreign sound recordings made from 1923 to 1972 are protected for 95 years from their publication in the US, in case owners of copyrights took certain provisionally set steps.