Commons:Copyright rules by territory/Republic of Artsakh
The Republic of Artsakh, or Nagorno-Karabakh was a de facto independent country in the South Caucasus that was internationally considered to be part of Azerbaijan. It has now been absorbed into Azerbaijan.
The region that today is Azerbaijan was ceded by Iran to Russia in the 19th century, then became the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic in 1918, and the Azerbaijan SSR, part of the Soviet Union, in 1920. Nagorno-Karabakh, an oblast of the Azerbaijan SSR with an Armenian majority population, has been self-governing since 1988. During the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Azerbaijan became independent on 18 October 1991. Nagorno-Karabakh claimed independence, supported by Armenia, but was not internationally recognized. After a military offensive by Azerbaijan, in September the president of Artsakh signed a decree to dissolve all of the republic's institutions by 1 January 2024, bringing its existence to an end.
Copyright rules
editSince Azerbaijan never recognized the de facto Republic of Artsakh, and Azerbaijan is now the relevant authority, the laws of Azerbaijan apply to works created or published in Nagorno-Karabakh or the Republic of Artsakh.
Artsakh had a copyright law enacted in 2002 that specified in Article 27 a copyright term of 50 years after the author's death, 50 years after publication for anonymous works, and 50 years after publication for posthumous works. Collective and audiovisual works were protected for 50 years after publication unless the authors were identified. However, identified authors exercised the rights of the specified parts of a collective or audiovisual work, in which the general term applied. Despite Azerbaijan extending the copyright length to 70 years in 2013, nevertheless it is supposed, that the author had agreed with uncopyrightability of this work.
Not protected
editThe non-protected works were similar to those in Azerbaijan and Armenia (in Article 6):
- works of folklore;
- communications on daily news or on current events that are press information;
- official documents (laws, decisions, decrees, etc.) as well as their official translations;
- state emblems and signs (flags, coats of arms (armorial bearings), medals (decorations), monetary signs, etc.);
- results obtained by technical means without the intervention of human creative activity.