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It would be a pleasant surprise for you when you find out that there are relatively few things you need to know. First of all, you need to know what exactly an article is from the viewpoint of the law. When brief reports on events or facts are of purely informational character, such reports are not considered as copyright subjects under the Law “On copyright and neighboring rights”.
This does not mean that there is no need to specify the source of information. The other law, i.e. the Law “On mass media” requires that a reference is made to the source of information. Apropos, such reference is not only gesture of courtesy towards colleagues.
In case of complaints with regard to the contents of information, the one you have referred to will be the first to bear the responsibility for its accuracy. When there is no reference, the one who disseminated it under his name will be the one to bear such responsibility. The purpose of this norm is to free the mass media from any responsibility for the sins of the others. However, when dirty tricks which are called “election technologies” for some unknown reason become the order of the day, such guarantee of freedom may become a gold mine for black PR.
When information reports are not copyright-protected, you can alter their style or reword it any way you like. But if you change the tone of an information report, give it some stylistic individuality inherent to your publication , such report would be attributed to another category. It will become a work protected by copyright. And it would not be somebody else’s work but your own. With all pluses and minuses ensuing therefrom. The pluses are obvious. One would have to ask you for a permission to reprint the report. But the fly in the ointment here is the fact that the existence of information source does not diminish your liability for the accuracy of the information you are disseminating.
Let us review another case. A reprinted report is not just bare information about a fact or an event. It contains some evaluative judgment. Moreover, the name of its author is specified below. In such case there can be no doubt that the work is protected by copyright.
There is always a temptation to make use of p. 3 of Article 19 of the Copyright Law which allows newspapers to use works without asking their authors for consent and without payment of any royalties. But there are some pre-conditions to such use. Author’s name and source must be specified. One also has to make sure that the articles on current economic, social or religious matters were published legitimately. And the last but the most important point is that one must make sure that the author did not specifically ban the reproduction of his work in newspapers or generally accessible electronic media.
If you are dead sure that a certain foreign author or his publisher does not know anything about this astute requirements of the Russian legislation, you may take a risk and reprint the article you want without asking for permission. But I would advise you against expecting a free lunch or a hit-or-miss.
Those publications from which you would like to hire an article have relevant departments in charge of the permissions you seek. If you know the author, you may ask him personally to give you the required permission. A letter from him stating that he has nothing against his work being reprinted in your publication would be enough.
But if you are time-wise and you are not sure of a positive reply to your request you may refer the right of quoting (p. 1 of Article19). The only restriction: a quotation cannot be of the same size as the whole work. You are to decide the scope of quoting based on the purposes thereof.
Reprinting of foreign literary works is another pair of shoes. If any work was formerly published in the Soviet Union, you would need to find out when. The point here is that all works of foreign authors published before the accession of the USSR to the Universal Copyright Convention (applicable in Russia since 1 January 1973) were not protected by copyright. Under Article 28 of the presently effective Copyright Law, works that have never been under copyright protection are deemed to be in public domain.
And works that are in public domain may be freely used by anyone. But one should not forget that the rights of the author of each of these works with regard to his name and reputation remain in effect.
A more complex matter is any work published before 1973 abroad but never published in Russia. Another principle applies to them. If the 50-year copyright term has not expired by 1 January 1993, the rule under which the copyright remains in effect throughout the author’s life and during 50 years after his death. In some cases this term may be prolonged.
Many people think that all foreign works released before 1973 are in public domain. This seems to be an easier way, but in fact this is only wishful thinking.
Vladimir Entin