While no creative work is automatically protected worldwide, there are international treaties which provide protection automatically for all creative works as soon as they are fixed in a medium.Two of the most important international copyright treaties include the Berne Convention and the Universal Copyright Convention (UCC).
Photographic works are tied to a minimum of 25 years.
The Buenos Aires Convention (Third Pan-American Convention) was a treaty signed by most North and South American countries, which allows for protection of all creative works as long as they contain a notice informing that the creator claims copyright on it.
The Buenos Aires Convention also instituted the rule of the shorter term, where the length of the copyright term for the work in a country was whichever was shorter - the length of the term in the source country, or the protecting country of the work.
All Buenos Aires countries are now also parties to the Berne Convention, but elements from Buenos Aires are still used in the modern era, such as the rule of the shorter term.