Myanmar

Section 17(a)(5) of Myanmar's Copyright Law of May 24, 2019 protects a work first owned by a government department or organization for 50 years, counted from the start of the calendar year after first publication.¹ A stamp issued in 1975 was therefore protected through December 31, 2025. Commons' note gives the line as stamps published before January 1, 1976, a year it recalculates each January.¹ The 2019 law replaced the Copyright Act of 1914, the colonial adaptation of the British act of 1911, and gives works protected under the old act the new law's terms.¹ Its note on stamps does not address status in the United States, where Commons also requires a file to be free.¹

Burma used the stamps of British India from 1854, and the first stamps for Burma were Indian stamps overprinted BURMA on April 1, 1937, according to Wikipedia.² During the Japanese occupation of 1942 to 1945, stamps were issued by the Japanese Army, the Burma Independence Army and, in 1943 and 1944, the State of Burma.² Burma became independent on January 4, 1948, and changed its official name to Myanmar in 1989, according to Commons.¹ Stamps carried the name Union of Burma until 1973, Socialist Republic of the Union of Burma from 1974, and Union of Myanmar from 1990.² Commons' note on stamps names only the 2019 law. It does not say which law governs the British India and occupation issues, and the archive treats that question as open.