1. The duration of protection of a work shall be governed, in
accordance with the provisions of Article II and this Article, by the
law of the Contracting State in which protection is claimed.
2. (a) The term of protection for works protected under this Convention
shall not be less that the life of the author and twenty-five years
after his death. However, any Contracting State which, on the
effective date of this Convention in that State, has limited this term
for certain classes of works to a period computed from this first
publication of the work, shall be entitled to maintain these exceptions
and to extend them to other classes of works. For all these classes
the term of protection shall not be less than twenty-five years from
the date of first publication.
(b) Any Contracting State which, upon the effective date of this
Convention in that State, does not compute the term of protection upon
the basis of the life of the author, shall be entitled to compute the
term of protection from the date of the first publication of the work
or from its registration prior to publication, as the case may be,
provided the term of protection shall not be less than twenty-five
years from the date of first publication or from its registration prior
to publication, as the case may be.
(c) If the legislation of a Contracting State grants two or more
successive terms of protection, the duration of the first term shall
not be less than one of the minimum periods specified in subparagraphs
(a) and (b).
3. The provisions of paragraph 2 shall not apply to photographic works
or to works of applied art; provided, however, that the term of
protection in those Contracting States which protect photographic
works, or works of applied art in so far as they are protected as
artistic works, shall not be less than ten years for each of said
classes of works.
4. (a) No Contracting State shall be obliged to grant protection to a
work for a period longer than that fixed for the class of works to
which the work in question belongs, in the case of unpublished works by
the law of the Contracting State of which the author is a national, and
in the case of published works by the law of the Contracting State in
which the work has been first published.
(b) For the purposes of the application of subparagraph (a), if the law
of any Contracting State grants two or more successive terms of
protection, the period of protection of that State shall be considered
to be the aggregate of those terms. However, if a specified work is
not protected by such State during the second or any subsequent term
for any reason, the other Contracting States shall not be obliged to
protect it during the second or any subsequent term.
5. For the purposes of the application of paragraph 4, the work of a
national of a Contracting State, first published in a non-Contracting
State, shall be treated as though first published in the Contracting
State of which the author is a national.
6. For the purposes of the application of paragraph 4, in case of
simultaneous publication in two or more Contracting States, the work
shall be treated as though first published in the State which affords
the shortest term; any work published in two or more Contracting States
within thirty days of its first publication shall be considered as
having been published simultaneously in said Contracting States.