So you went through the trouble of copyrighting your hard work here in the United States. Is your work similarly protected in other countries or do you have to file a copyright for every country in the world?

The United States maintains copyright relations with most of the countries in the world. That means that works created here are protected under copyright there and works created in other countries are protected by copyright here. The United States does not maintain this type of relationship with every country in the world, while for some countries it is unknown what kind of copyright status foreign made works possess, if any.

There is no international copyright. However works created in the US and other countries are afforded copyrighted status in many countries due to the signing of treaties around the world by various countries pledging to respect the copyrights of works created in those countries.

A few of these treaties include the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, the Universal Copyright Convention, and the World Intellectual Property Organization Copyright Treaty, among others. Some countries have signed some treaties, but not others. By virtue of this fact there is a possibility that some works created in the United States will be recognized as being copyrighted in a country while other works will not. The best way to find out how other countries view the copyrights of the United States and other countries is to view the website for the Copyright Office of the country you are trying to find information on.

It could also be possible to have a work copyrighted in another country. This document is not able to go through the copyright laws and regulations for foreign works of every country in the world as it would be far too long.

There are several countries that have no treaties in effect for the treatment of works and copyrights created in the United States. The Copyright Office lists the following countries as having no copyright treaties in effect with the United States: Afghanistan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Iran, Iraq, San Marino, and Turkmenistan. There is also a list of countries with unknown stances on foreign copyright, including copyrights which originated in the United States. These countries are: Kiribati, Nauru, Palau, São Tomé and Principe, Seychelles, Somalia, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu.

What this means for works created in those countries here in the United States is uncertain as well.

The assumption that all members of the United Nations adhere to the copyright laws of all other member nations is false as all of the above mentioned countries that either have no copyright treaties with the United States or have an unknown status regarding foreign copyrights are all members of the United Nations.

Other countries that you would think would not have a copyright treaty with the United States, such as North Korea, does in fact have a treaty in effect. In 2003, North Korea passed the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works treaty. This means that North Korea has said they will honor the copyrights of many countries.

In the United States, material created by employees of the federal government as part of their job cannot be copyrighted and can be used by anyone, in any country, but this may or may not be in effect for every country. Before using government-created items, check with the country of origin regarding the copyright status of such items.

The fact that an item is "old" does not mean that such works are in the public domain or otherwise free to use. For example, in the United Kingdom they have what is known as a "Crown Copyright"—this is a copyright that exists in perpetuity. An example of a Crown Copyright is the King James Bible. Other countries may have similar clauses.

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