Copyright Act of 1976
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! style="background-color: #899;" | '''<big>Copyright Act of 1976</big>'''
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| '''Full title:''' An Act for the general revision of the Copyright Law, title 17 of the United States Code, and for other purposes.
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| '''Enacted by the:''' [[94th United States Congress|94th Congress]]
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| '''Effective Date:''' [[January 1]], [[1978]]
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! style="background-color: #899;" | Citations
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| '''Public Law:''' Pub. L. 94-553
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| '''U.S. Statutes at Large:''' 90 Stat. 2541 (1976)
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! style="background-color: #899;" | Codification
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| '''Act(s) amended:''' [[Copyright Act of 1909]]
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| '''Title(s) amended:''' 17 (Copyright)
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| '''United States Code sections created:''' 17 U.S.C. §§ 101-810
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| '''United States Code sections substantially amended:''' 44 U.S.C. §§ 505 & 2113; 18 U.S.C. § 2318
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! style="background-color: #899;" | Legislative history
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* '''Introduced in the''' [[United States Senate]] '''as''' S.22 '''by''' Senator [[John Little McClellan]] ([[Democratic Party (United States)|D]]-[[Arkansas|AR]]) '''on''' [[January 15]], [[1975]]
* '''Committee consideration by:''' [[House Judiciary Committee]] (Subcommittee on Courts, Civil Liberties, and the Administration of Justice); [[Senate Judiciary Committee]]
* '''Passed the [[United States Senate|Senate]] on''' [[February 19]], [[1976]]
* '''Passed the [[United States House of Representatives|House]] on''' [[September 22]], [[1976]]
* '''Reported by the joint conference committee on''' [[September 29]], [[1976]]; '''agreed to by the [[United States Senate|Senate]] on''' [[September 30]], [[1976]] '''and by the [[United States House of Representatives|House]] on''' [[September 30]], [[1976]]
* '''Signed into law by President''' [[Gerald Ford|Ford]] '''on''' [[October 19]], [[1976]]
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! style="background-color: #899;" | Major amendments
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| [[Digital Millennium Copyright Act]]; [[Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act]]
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'''The Copyright Act of 1976''' is a piece of [[United States]] [[copyright]] legislation and remains the primary basis of copyright law in the United States, as amended by several later enacted copyright provisions. The Act spells out the basic rights of copyright holders, codified the doctrine of "[[fair use]]," and for most new copyrights adopted a unitary term based on the date of the author's death rather than the prior scheme of fixed initial and renewal terms. It became Public Law number 94-553 on [[October 19]], [[1976]] and went into effect on [[January 1]], [[1978]].
== History & purpose ==
Before the 1976 Act, the last major revision to [[statute|statutory]] copyright law in the United States occurred in 1909. In deliberating the Act, [[United States Congress|Congress]] noted that extensive technological advances had occurred since the adoption of the [[Copyright Act of 1909|1909 Act]]. [[Television]], [[motion picture]]s, [[sound recordings]], and [[radio]] were cited as examples. The Act was designed in part to address [[intellectual property]] questions raised by these new forms of communication. (see [[United States House of Representatives|House]] report number 94-1476)
Aside from advances in technology, the other main impetus behind the adoption of the 1976 Act was the development of and the United States' participation in the [[Universal Copyright Convention]] (UCC) (and its anticipated participation in the [[Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works|Berne Convention]]). While the U.S. became a party to the UCC in 1955, the machinery of government was slow to update U.S. copyright law to conform to the Convention's standards. In the years following the United States' adoption of the UCC, Congress commissioned multiple studies on a general revision of copyright law, culminating in a published report in 1961. A draft of the bill was introduced in both the House and [[United States Senate|Senate]] in 1964, but the original version of the Act was revised multiple times between 1964 and 1976 (see House report number 94-1476). The bill was passed as S. 22 of the 94th Congress by a vote of 97-0 in the Senate on [[February 19]], [[1976]]. S. 22 was passed by a vote of 316-7 in the House of Representatives on [[September 22]], [[1976]]. The final version was adopted into law as title 17 of the [[United States Code]] on [[October 19]], [[1976]] when [[Gerald R. Ford]] signed it. The law went into effect on [[January 1]], [[1978]].
At the time, the law was considered to be a fair compromise between publishers' and authors' rights. Barbaro Ringer, the U.S. Register of Copyrights, called the new law "a balanced compromise that comes down on the authors' and creators' side in almost every instance."<ref name="Time">''Righting Copyright'', Time, Nov. 1, 1976, at 92.</ref> The law was almost exclusively discussed in publishers' and librarians' journals, and with the exception of a half page article in [[Time Magazine|Time]], was not discussed in mainstream publications at all. The claimed advantage of the law's extension of the term of subsisting copyrights was that "royalties will be paid to widows and heirs for an extra 19 years for such about-to-expire copyrights as those on Sherword Anderson's ''Winesburg, Ohio'' . . . ."<ref name="Time">''Righting Copyright'', Time, Nov. 1, 1976, at 92.</ref> The other intent of the extension was to protect authors' rights "for life plus 50 years—the most common term internationally and the one [[Mark Twain|Twain]] fought for in his lifetime."<ref name="Time">''Righting Copyright'', Time, Nov. 1, 1976, at 92.</ref> Further extensions of both term and scope have been desired by some, as foreshadowed by the contemporary quote made by James Fitzpatrick, a [[Recording Industry Association of America]] copyright lawyer, in response to a question about whether his workload would decrease with the passage of the bill, "It's clear, that I'll continue to be occupied."<ref name="Time">''Righting Copyright'', Time, Nov. 1, 1976, at 92.</ref>
== Significant portions of the Act ==
The 1976 Act, through its terms, preempts all previous copyright law in the United States. The preempted law includes prior federal legislation, such as the Copyright Act of 1909, but also includes all relevant [[non-statutory law|common law]] and state copyright laws insofar as they conflict with the Act.
=== Subject matter of copyright ===
Under section 102 of the Act, copyright protection extends to "original works of authorship [[fixation|fixed]] in any tangible medium of expression, now known or later developed, from which they can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a [[machine]] or device." The Act defines "works of authorship" as any of the following:
#[[literature|literary]] works,
#[[music|musical]] works, including any accompanying words,
#[[drama|dramatic]] works, including any accompanying music,
#[[Mime artist|pantomime]]s and [[choreography|choreographic]] works,
#[[picture|pictorial]], [[graphic]], and [[sculpture|sculptural]] works,
#motion pictures and other audiovisual works, and
#sound recordings.<ref>[http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#102 17 U.S.C. 102]</ref>
An eighth category, [[architecture|architectural]] works, was added in 1990.
The wording of section 102 is significant mainly because it effectuated a major change in the mode of United States copyright protection. Under the last major statutory revision to U.S. copyright law, the Copyright Act of 1909, federal statutory copyright protection attached to original works only when those works were 1) published and 2) had a notice of copyright affixed. State copyright law governed protection for unpublished works before the adoption of the 1976 Act, but published works, whether containing a notice of copyright or not, were governed exclusively by federal law. If no notice of copyright was affixed to a work and the work was, in fact, "published" in a legal sense, the 1909 Act provided no copyright protection and the work became part of the [[public domain]]. Under the 1976 Act, however, section 102 says that copyright protection extends to original works that are ''fixed'' in a tangible medium of expression. Thus, the 1976 Act broadened the scope of federal statutory copyright protection from "published" works to works that are "fixed."
=== Exclusive rights ===
Section 106 granted five exclusive rights to copyright holders:
#the right to ''reproduce'' (copy),
#the right to create ''derivative works'' of the original work,
#the right to ''sell'', lease, or rent copies of the work to the public,
#the right to ''perform'' the work publicly (if the work is a literary, musical, dramatic, choreographic, pantomime, motion picture, or other audiovisual work), and
#the right to ''display'' the work publicly (if the work is a literary, musical, dramatic, choreographic, pantomime, pictorial, graphic, sculptural, motion picture, or other audiovisual work).<ref>[http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#106 17 U.S.C. 106]</ref>
The Act was amended in 1995 to include a sixth exclusive right—the right to perform a sound recording by means of digital audio.
=== Fair use ===
Additionally, the fair use defense to [[copyright infringement]] was codified for the first time in section 107 of the 1976 Act. Fair use was not a novel proposition in 1976, however, as [[United States federal court system|federal court]]s had been using a common law form of the doctrine since the 1840s (an [[England|English]] version of fair use appeared much earlier). The Act codified this common law doctrine with little modification. Under section 107, the fair use of a copyrighted work is not copyright infringement, even if such use technically violates section 106. While fair use explicitly applies to use of copyrighted work for criticism, news reporting, [[teaching]], [[Scholarly method|scholarship]], or research purposes, the defense is not limited to these areas. The Act gives four factors to be considered to determine whether a particular use is a fair use:
#the purpose and character of the use (commercial or educational, transformative or reproductive);
#the nature of the copyrighted work (fictional or factual, the degree of creativity);
#the amount and substantiality of the portion of the original work used; and
#the effect of the use upon the [[market]] (or potential market) for the original work.<ref>[http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#107 17 U.S.C. 107]</ref>
The Act was later amended to extend the fair use defense to unpublished works.
=== Term of protection ===
Previous copyright law set the duration of copyright protection at twenty-eight years with a possibility of a twenty-eight year extension, for a total maximum term of fifty-six years. The 1976 Act, however, substantially increased the term of protection. Section 302 of the Act extended protection to "a term consisting of the life of the author and 50 years after the author's death."<ref>[http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap3.html#302 17 U.S.C. 302]</ref> In addition, the Act created a static seventy-five year term (dated from the date of publication) for anonymous works, pseudonymous works, and works made for hire. In 1998 the [[Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act]] extended copyright protection to the duration of the author's life plus seventy years for general copyrights and to ninety-five years for works made for hire.
=== Transfer of copyright ===
Section 204 of the Act governs the transfer of ownership of copyrights. The section requires a copyright holder to sign a written instrument of conveyance that expressly transfers ownership of the copyright to the intended recipient for a transfer to be effective.<ref>[http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap2.html#204 17 U.S.C. 204]</ref> Prior case law on this issue was conflicting, with some cases espousing a rule similar to section 204 and others reaching a quite different conclusion. A 1942 [[New York]] case, for example, held the opposite—the court said that while a copyright in a work is distinct from a property right in the work, the copyright must be expressly withheld by the author if the work is sold or it will automatically transfer with the property right in the work. While the 1976 Act retains the property right/copyright distinction (in section 202), section 204 eliminates the inconsistent common law by assuming that the copyright is withheld by the author unless it is expressly transferred.
=== Registration & deposit===
According to section 408 of the Act, registration of a work with the [[United States Copyright Office|Copyright Office]] is not a prerequisite for copyright protection.<ref>[http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap4.html#408 17 U.S.C. 408]</ref> The Act does, however, allow for registration, and gives the Copyright Office the power to promulgate the necessary forms. Aside from Copyright Office paperwork, the Act requires only that one copy, or two copies if the work has been published, be deposited with the Office to accomplish registration. Though registration is not required for copyright protection to attach to a work, section 411 of the Act does require registration before a copyright infringement action by the creator of the work can proceed.<ref>[http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap4.html#411 17 U.S.C. 411]</ref> Even if registration is denied, however, an infringement action can continue if the creator of the work joins the Copyright Office as a defendant, requiring the court to determine the copyrightability of the work before addressing the issue of infringement.
== See also ==
* [[United States copyright law]]
* [[Digital Millennium Copyright Act]]
== References ==
<references />
== External links ==
{{wikisource|Copyright Law Revision (House Report No. 94-1476)}}
* [http://www.copyright.gov/title17/ US Copyright Office, Title 17]
* [http://www.law.cornell.edu/copyright/copyright.table.html Cornell Law School, on Copyright]
* [http://www.worldwideschool.org/library/books/socl/law/CopyrightActof1976/Chap1.html World wide school.org]
* New York Law School Law Review, ''The Complete Guide to the New Copyright Law'', Lorenz Press Inc., 1977, ISBN 0-89328-013-5
* [http://homepages.uc.edu/~armstrty/H_R_Rep_No_94-1476.pdf House Report No. 94-1476] <small>(PDF, 155 MB)</small>, a key component in the legislative history of the Act.
[[Category:1976 in law]]
[[Category:1976 in the United States]]
[[Category:Copyright legislation]]
[[Category:United States copyright law|Copyright Act of 1976]]
[[Category:United States federal intellectual property legislation|Copyright Act of 1976]]
[[it:Copyright Act 1976]]