Treaties

This page is not legal advice. The law of the country where you live applies to you.

International treaties set minimum rules that most countries share. They neither give a right to study a program nor forbid it. Each country decides this within the limits the treaties set.

What the treaties require

• Programs are literary works. The TRIPS Agreement (Art. 10(1)) binds every WTO member to protect programs, in source or object code, as literary works (TRIPS). The WIPO Copyright Treaty says the same in Art. 4 (WCT).
• Copyright lasts at least the author's life plus 50 years. The Berne Convention sets this in Art. 7(1). TRIPS Art. 12 sets at least 50 years from publication for works owned by a company, which covers most games (Berne).
• No registration is needed. Berne Art. 5(2) forbids formalities. A foreign game is protected in each member country as if it were local (Art. 5(1)).
• Exceptions must pass the three-step test. Berne Art. 9(2), TRIPS Art. 13 and WCT Art. 10 allow exceptions "in certain special cases" that do not conflict with normal use of the work and do not unreasonably harm the author. The WCT's agreed statement lets countries extend their exceptions to digital uses and create new ones (WCT agreed statements).
• Locks get "adequate legal protection". WCT Art. 11 asks for protection against breaking technical locks that restrict acts "not authorized ... or permitted by law". It says nothing about tools. Under this wording, a country can allow circumvention for a use an exception already permits.

WIPO lists 119 parties to the WCT (WIPO Lex). Brazil, Egypt, Pakistan, Iran, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka are not among them. Saudi Arabia is not listed (not confirmed). Israel, Kenya and South Africa signed and have not ratified. Taiwan cannot join WIPO treaties, but it is a WTO member.

Trade agreements that go further

US free trade agreements contain stricter rules. The USMCA (CUSMA) between the US, Mexico and Canada is an example (USMCA chapter 20).

• Art. 20.66 makes breaking an access lock a wrong of its own, separate from infringement. It also covers making or selling tools.
• Exceptions come from a closed list. The first is reverse engineering a lawfully obtained program "for the sole purpose of achieving interoperability of an independently created computer program".
• Libraries may break a lock only to decide whether to buy a work.
• Art. 20.62 sets copyright at life plus 70 years, or 75 years from publication for company works. Canada moved to life plus 70 on 30 December 2022 for this reason.

The US agreements with Australia, Singapore, Chile, Korea, Jordan, Morocco, Bahrain and Central America have similar rules (EFF comparison). When the US left the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the other eleven countries suspended its term and lock articles in the CPTPP (DFAT).

Libraries and archives

A 2017 WIPO study covered 191 countries. It found 161 with at least one library or archive exception, 102 that allow preservation copies and 53 that let libraries break locks. Many countries exclude computer programs from library copying (SCCR/35/6). WIPO's committee has not agreed a treaty. A draft from October 2026 defines preservation to include moving works "to stable technological formats" (SCCR/49/5). The draft is not binding. It covers only institutions.

No country gives a private owner a right to preserve a game. A private owner can rely only on the software exceptions on the regional pages.

How countries classify games

WIPO's 2013 study found that no country has settled how to classify games (WIPO study). Canada, China, Russia, Singapore and Spain treat games mainly as programs. The US, Germany, Japan, India and others protect each part by its own kind: code as a program, art as art, music as music. Kenya and South Korea treat games mainly as audiovisual works. The copyright term and the exceptions that apply to a game depend on how the country classifies it.

Heritage

UNESCO's 2003 Charter on the Preservation of the Digital Heritage names software, and asks countries for legal frameworks that support preservation (UNESCO Charter). UNESCO backs the Software Heritage archive of source code. UNESCO's texts treat software as heritage. They do not give anyone a legal permission.