Commons:Government works/Americas

Government works
Africa‌Americas‌Asia‌Europe‌Oceania‌Others

This page gives overviews of rules for government works in different countries or territories of Americas. These are works made by or for a national or sub-national government, or works whose copyright is held by a national or sub-national government. The rules are "transcluded" from individual page sections giving the rules for each territory.

Countries of the Americas

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COM:GVT Antigua and Barbuda

Antigua and Barbuda

No information available

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COM:GVT Argentina

Argentina

No information available

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COM:GVT Bahamas

The Bahamas

No information available

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COM:GVT Barbados

Barbados

No information available

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COM:GVT Belize

Belize

No information available

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COM:GVT Bolivia

Bolivia

No information available

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COM:GVT Brazil

Brazil

Under the Berne Convention, Article 2.4, It shall be a matter for legislation in the countries of the Union to determine the protection to be granted to official texts of a legislative, administrative and legal nature, and to official translations of such texts.

The convention was implemented by Federal Decree nº 75.699 of 1975 but the decree does not address the issue. Some freedom of access was defined in 1988 with the new Federal Constitution,^[1]^[2]^[3]

Article 5 (XIV) – access to information is ensured to everyone and the confidentiality of the source shall be safeguarded, whenever necessary to the professional activity.
Article 216 (Para 2) It is incumbent upon the Government, in accordance with the law, to manage the keeping of the governmental documents and to make them available for consultation to whomever may need to do so.

In 1998 the exclusion from copyright protection of these types of work was expressed by article 8, items I and IV of the Copyright law. It excludes legislative and judicial documents, but not all works (ex. cited maps, tables, etc.) created by the federal government.

See {{PD-BrazilGov}}. Note: a special clause must be added to the CC0 implicit license of legislative documents that obliges copiers to add a red notice saying "This text does not replace the original published in the Official Gazette".

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COM:GVT Canada

Canada

No information available

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COM:GVT Chile

Chile

No information available

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COM:GVT Colombia

Colombia

No information available

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COM:GVT Costa Rica

Costa Rica

According to Costa Rica's intellectual property law (Law 6683, as amended by Law 8834 of 3 May 2010):

Everyone is allowed to freely reproduce constitutions, laws, decrees, municipal agreements, regulations and other public acts, as long as they strictly conform to the official edition. Individuals can also publish the codes and legislative collections, with notes and comments, and each author will own their own work.^{[6683/2010 Article 75]}
The State, municipal councils and official corporations shall enjoy the protection of this law, but with regard to economic rights, they shall have them for only 25 years from publication of the work, except in the case of public entities, whose purpose is the exercise of these rights as an ordinary activity; in which case the protection will be 50 years.^{[6683/2010 Article 63]}

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COM:GVT Cuba

Under the 1928 Federal Civil Code, the government could hold not copyright.^{[1928 Art.1235]}
The extension to 30 years from publication appears to have happened in 1963.^[4]
The extension to 50 years from publication is documented in the Diario Oficial of 11 January 1982.^[5]