The Status of a Translator in Cross-Border Copyright Relations and the Choice of Applicable Law in the Russian Federation

The translator as a subject of law was already known in the Russian Empire in connection with the translation of the texts of musical works for the imperial opera (1827) and was already then considered equal to the author of the original work according to a number of criteria. This fact was preceded by several centuries of practical work by translators and the development of requirements for their activities through non-governmental regulation. From 1828 to the present day, the legal status of translators has gradually evolved in Russia. The legal status of translators reflected the copyright laws of the respective eras—the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union, and the Russian Federation. Since 1973, on the basis of the Universal Copyright Convention of 1952, foreign translators from many countries have received legal protection in Russia and vice versa, which has introduced its own peculiarities into the regulation. The regulation of foreign translators' rights was expanded in 1995 with the Russian Federation's accession to the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works of 1886. Currently, in Russia, the right to translate is absolute and is part of the translator's exclusive rights as the author of a derivative work. The applicable law for determining authorship of a foreign translation is determined based on the lex loci originis, and the intellectual property status is determined based on the lex loci protectionis.