History of copyright law of the United States

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The copyright law of the United States has a long and complicated history, dating back to colonial times. It was established as federal law with the Copyright Act of 1790. This act was updated many times, including a major revision in 1976.

Contents

Colonial era

The British Statute of Anne did not apply to the American colonies. [1] Printing was restricted in the colonies, and most authors who published at all chose to do so in England. [2] As a result, prior to 1783, there were no copyright acts of general applicability passed in the colonies; although there were three cases of private acts bestowing copyright upon specific authors for their works for only a short term of years. [2]

1783 to 1787

In 1783, several authors' petitions persuaded the Congress of the Confederation "that nothing is more properly a man's own than the fruit of his study, and that the protection and security of literary property would greatly tend to encourage genius and to promote useful discoveries." However, under the Articles of Confederation, the Continental Congress had no authority to issue a copyright. Instead it passed a resolution encouraging the States to "secure to the authors or publishers of any new book not hitherto printed ... the copy right of such books for a certain time not less than fourteen years from the first publication; and to secure to the said authors, if they shall survive the term first mentioned, ... the copy right of such books for another term of time no less than fourteen years." [3] Three states had already enacted copyright statutes in 1783 prior to the Continental Congress resolution, and in the subsequent three years all of the remaining states except Delaware passed a copyright statute. [4] Seven of the States followed the Statute of Anne and the Continental Congress' resolution by providing two fourteen-year terms. The five remaining States granted copyright for single terms of fourteen, twenty and twenty one years, with no right of renewal. [5]

Prior to the passage of the United States Constitution, several states passed their own copyright laws between 1783 and 1787, the first being Connecticut. [6] Contemporary scholars and patriots such as Noah Webster, John Trumbull, and Joel Barlow were instrumental in securing the passage of these statutes. [6]

United States Constitution

At the Constitutional Convention of 1787 both James Madison of Virginia and Charles C. Pinckney of South Carolina submitted proposals that would allow Congress the power to grant copyright for a limited time. [7] These proposals are the origin of the Copyright Clause in the United States Constitution, which states:

The Congress shall have Power ... to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.

United States Constitution, Article I, Section 8, clause 8.

This clause is understood to grant Congress the power to enact copyright laws. The Copyright Clause forms the basis for both U.S. copyright law ("Science", "Authors", "Writings") and patent law ("useful Arts", "Inventors", "Discoveries"), and requires that these exclusive rights expire ("for limited Times").[ citation needed ]

Failed bill of rights provision

Thomas Jefferson, who strongly advocated the ability of the public to share and build upon the works of others, suggested limiting copyright duration in the Bill of Rights, proposing the language:

Art. 9. Monopolies may be allowed to persons for their own productions in literature and their own inventions in the arts for a term not exceeding – years but for no longer term and no other purpose. [8]

The Copyright Act of 1790 in the Columbian Centinel, full title "An act for the encouragement of learning by securing the copies of maps, charts, and books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the times therein mentioned" Copyright Act of 1790 in Colombian Centinel.jpg
The Copyright Act of 1790 in the Columbian Centinel, full title "An act for the encouragement of learning by securing the copies of maps, charts, and books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the times therein mentioned"

The Congress first exercised its copyright powers with the Copyright Act of 1790. This act granted authors the exclusive right to publish and vend "maps, charts and books" for a term of 14 years. This 14-year term was renewable for one additional 14-year term, if the author was alive at the end of the first time. With exception of the provision on maps and charts the Copyright Act of 1790 is copied almost verbatim from the Statute of Anne. [5]

The 1790 Act did not regulate other kinds of writings, such as musical compositions or newspapers and specifically noted that it did not prohibit copying the works of foreign authors. Foreign works were still unprotected after the 1831 and 1870 Copyright Acts, though from the 1820s the US started entering into bilateral agreements with other countries. [9] : 288,289  The Chace Act of 1891 enforced copyright of all foreign countries who reciprocally protected US copyright. [9] : 291  Various groups representing the interests of British authors had made petitions regarding copyright in 1837, 1838, 1853, 1868, 1870, 1878, and 1880. [10] : 696–738 

The vast majority of writings were never registered. Between 1790 and 1799, of approximately 13,000 titles published in the United States, only 556 works were registered. [11] Under the 1790 Act, federal copyright protection was only granted if the author met certain "statutory formalities." For example, authors were required to include a proper copyright notice. If formalities were not met, the work immediately entered into the public domain.[ citation needed ]

And while musical compositions were not explicitly protected by the 1790 Act, its protection of "books" encompassed printed musical works. The first registration of a copyright in a musical composition in the United States was The Kentucky Volunteer in 1794. [12] However, later accounts of the 1790 Act frequently misunderstand this point. [13]

Congress first revised the copyright laws with the Copyright Act of 1831. This act extended the original copyright term from 14 years to 28 years (with an option to renew), and changed the copyright formality requirements.[ citation needed ]

In 1834, the Supreme Court ruled in Wheaton v. Peters (a case similar to the British Donaldson v Beckett of 1774) that although the author of an unpublished work had a common law right to control the first publication of that work, the author did not have a common law right to control reproduction following the first publication of the work. [5]

During the American Civil War, the law of the Confederate States of America on copyright was broadly the same as that of the existing Copyright Act of 1831: twenty-eight years with an extension for fourteen, with mandatory registration. This was passed into law by an act in May 1861, shortly after the outbreak of hostilities. A later amendment, in April 1863, provided that any copyright registered in the United States before secession, and held by a current Confederate citizen or resident, was legally valid within the Confederacy. Confederate copyrights were apparently honored after the end of the war; when federal copyright records were transferred to the Library of Congress in 1870. [14]

Buenos Aires Convention of 1910

The Buenos Aires Convention of 1910 provided mutual recognition of copyright between most countries who were members of the Pan American Union, [15] and was ratified by the United States in 1911. [16] Not all countries in the Americas were signatories. Canada in particular was not a signatory, because it was ineligible for membership in the Pan American Union: the union was limited to American republics, and Canada was not deemed a independent state separate from the United Kingdom. [17] However, Canada and the United States subsequently entered into a bilateral agreement by presidential proclamation under which each of the two countries extended copyright protection to the other, effective January 1, 1924. [18] [19] [20]

Before the 1976 Copyright Act, copyright protection was provided by a dual system under both federal and state laws. Federal law under the 1909 Copyright Act protected works that were published or registered, and state copyright laws, including "common law copyright", protected works that were unpublished and unregistered. [21]

As of January 1, 1978, the effective date of the 1976 Copyright Act, Congress abolished the dual federal-and-state copyright system, replacing it with a single federal copyright system. Federal preemption is codified at 17 U.S.C.   § 301(a) , which states:

On and after January 1, 1978, all legal or equitable rights that are equivalent to any of the exclusive rights within the general scope of copyright ... in works of authorship that ... come within the subject matter of copyright ... are governed exclusively by this title. Thereafter, no person is entitled to any such right or equivalent right in any such work under the common law or statutes of any State.

The preemption is complete insofar as works fall within the federal copyright statute. A work that falls generally within the subject matter of copyright (such as a writing) must either qualify to be protected under federal law, or it cannot be protected at all. State law cannot provide protection for a work that federal law does not protect. [22] It covers enforcement too. A person accused of copyright infringement cannot be prosecuted in state courts. [23] [24]

State copyright law is not preempted by non-protected works. For example, those that have "not been fixed in any tangible medium of expression are not covered." [25] "Examples would include choreography that has never been filmed or notated, an extemporaneous speech, original works of authorship communicated solely through conversations or live broadcasts, a dramatic sketch or musical composition improvised or developed from memory and without being recorded or written down." [26]

Since 1790, Congress has amended federal copyright law numerous times. Major amendments include:

Key international agreements affecting U.S. copyright law include:

The United States ratified the Universal Copyright Convention in 1954, and again in 1971. This treaty was developed by UNESCO as an alternative to the Berne Convention.

The United States became a Berne Convention signatory in 1988. The Berne Convention entered into force in the U.S. a year later, on March 1, 1989. The U.S. is also a party to TRIPS, which requires compliance with Berne provisions, and is enforceable under the World Trade Organization dispute resolution process.

To meet the treaty requirements, copyright protection was extended to architecture (where previously only building plans were protected, not buildings themselves), and certain moral rights of visual artists.

Notable cases

Fixation
Originality
Idea/expression dichotomy
Fair use

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Copyright</span> Legal concept regulating rights of a creative work

A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive legal right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, educational, or musical form. Copyright is intended to protect the original expression of an idea in the form of a creative work, but not the idea itself. A copyright is subject to limitations based on public interest considerations, such as the fair use doctrine in the United States and fair dealings doctrine in the United Kingdom.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Moral rights</span> Copyrights related to attribution, anonymity, and integrity of the work

Moral rights are rights of creators of copyrighted works generally recognized in civil law jurisdictions and, to a lesser extent, in some common law jurisdictions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of copyright</span>

The history of copyright starts with early privileges and monopolies granted to printers of books. The British Statute of Anne 1710, full title "An Act for the Encouragement of Learning, by vesting the Copies of Printed Books in the Authors or purchasers of such Copies, during the Times therein mentioned", was the first copyright statute. Initially copyright law only applied to the copying of books. Over time other uses such as translations and derivative works were made subject to copyright and copyright now covers a wide range of works, including maps, performances, paintings, photographs, sound recordings, motion pictures and computer programs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Copyright Act of 1790</span> First U.S. federal legislation on copyright

The Copyright Act of 1790 was the first federal copyright act to be instituted in the United States, though most of the states had passed various legislation securing copyrights in the years immediately following the Revolutionary War. The stated object of the act was the "encouragement of learning," and it achieved this by securing authors the "sole right and liberty of printing, reprinting, publishing and vending" the copies of their "maps, charts, and books" for a term of 14 years, with the right to renew for one additional 14-year term should the copyright holder still be alive.

A work of the United States government is defined by the United States copyright law, as "a work prepared by an officer or employee of the United States Government as part of that person's official duties". Under section 105 of the Copyright Act of 1976, such works are not entitled to domestic copyright protection under U.S. law and are therefore in the public domain.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">International Copyright Act of 1891</span> US federal legislation

The International Copyright Act of 1891 is the first U.S. congressional act that extended limited protection to foreign copyright holders from select nations. Formally known as the "International Copyright Act of 1891", but more commonly referred to as the "Chace Act" after Sen. Jonathan Chace of Rhode Island.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Uruguay Round Agreements Act</span> US free trade law with implications for intellectual property

The Uruguay Round Agreements Act is an Act of Congress in the United States that implemented in U.S. law the Marrakesh Agreement of 1994. The Marrakesh Agreement was part of the Uruguay Round of negotiations which transformed the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) into the World Trade Organization (WTO). One of its effects is to give United States copyright protection to foreign works that had previously been in the public domain in the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Copyright Act of 1909</span> US federal legislation

The Copyright Act of 1909 was a landmark statute in United States statutory copyright law. It went into effect on July 1, 1909. The 1909 Act was repealed and superseded by the Copyright Act of 1976, which went into effect on January 1, 1978; but some of 1909 Act's provisions continue to apply to copyrighted works created before 1978. It allowed for works to be copyrighted for a period of 28 years from the date of publication and extended the renewal term from 14 years to 28 years, for a maximum of 56 years.

"Authors' rights" is a term frequently used in connection with laws about intellectual property.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Related rights</span> Intellectual property rights of a creative work not connected with the works actual author

In copyright law, related rights are the rights of a creative work not connected with the work's actual author. It is used in opposition to the term "authors' rights". Neighbouring rights is a more literal translation of the original French droits voisins. Both authors' rights and related rights are copyrights in the sense of English or U.S. law.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Berne Convention Implementation Act of 1988</span> United States law

The Berne Convention Implementation Act of 1988 is a copyright act that came into force in the United States on March 1, 1989, making it a party to the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works.

The rule of the shorter term, also called the comparison of terms, is a provision in international copyright treaties. The provision allows that signatory countries can limit the duration of copyright they grant to foreign works under national treatment to no more than the copyright term granted in the country of origin of the work.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Copyright Term Extension Act</span> United States copyright law

The Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act – also known as the Copyright Term Extension Act, Sonny Bono Act, or (derisively) the Mickey Mouse Protection Act – extended copyright terms in the United States in 1998. It is one of several acts extending the terms of copyright.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Berne Convention</span> 1886 international assembly and treaty

The Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, usually known as the Berne Convention, was an international assembly held in 1886 in the Swiss city of Berne by ten European countries with the goal of agreeing on a set of legal principles for the protection of original work. They drafted and adopted a multi-party contract containing agreements for a uniform, border-crossing system that became known under the same name. Its rules have been updated many times since then. The treaty provides authors, musicians, poets, painters, and other creators with the means to control how their works are used, by whom, and on what terms. In some jurisdictions these type of rights are referred to as copyright; on the European continent they are generally referred to as authors' rights or makerright.

The Copyright Clause describes an enumerated power listed in the United States Constitution.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Copyright Act of 1976</span> United States law

The Copyright Act of 1976 is a United States copyright law 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.

The copyright law of the United States grants monopoly protection for "original works of authorship". With the stated purpose to promote art and culture, copyright law assigns a set of exclusive rights to authors: to make and sell copies of their works, to create derivative works, and to perform or display their works publicly. These exclusive rights are subject to a time and generally expire 70 years after the author's death or 95 years after publication. In the United States, works published before January 1, 1929, are in the public domain.

Bonito Boats, Inc. v. Thunder Craft Boats, Inc., 489 U.S. 141 (1989), is a decision of the United States Supreme Court holding a state anti-plug molding law preempted because it partially duplicated and therefore interfered with the balance Congress had struck by federal patent law. The decision reaffirmed the Supreme Court's earlier decision in Sears, Roebuck & Co. v. Stiffel Co. (1964), which held a state unfair competition law preempted on the same ground.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Public domain in the United States</span>

Works are in the public domain if they are not covered by the intellectual property right known as copyright, or if the intellectual property rights to the works have expired. Works automatically enter the public domain when their copyright has expired. The United States Copyright Office is a federal agency tasked with maintaining copyright records.

Goldstein v. California, 412 U.S. 546 (1973), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the high court ruled that California's state statutes criminalizing record piracy did not violate the Copyright Clause of the United States Constitution.

References

  1. ↑ Bracha, Oren (January 20, 2010). "The Adventures Of The Statute Of Anne In The Land Of Unlimited Possibilities: The Life Of A Legal Transplant" (PDF). Berkeley Technology Law Journal. 25 (3): 1427, 1440.
  2. 1 2 Patry, William (2004). "Introduction". Copyright Law and Practice. Washington, DC: Bureau of National Affairs. OCLC   785277236.
  3. ↑ Peter K, Yu (2007). Intellectual Property and Information Wealth: Copyright and related rights. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 142. ISBN   978-0-275-98883-8.
  4. ↑ Brian Pelanda. "Declarations of Cultural Independence: The Nationalistic Imperative Behind the Passage of Early American Copyright Laws, 1783–1787". SSRN   1941506., 58 Journal of the Copyright Society of the U.S.A. 431 (2011).
  5. 1 2 3 Peter K, Yu (2007). Intellectual Property and Information Wealth: Copyright and related rights. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 143. ISBN   978-0-275-98883-8.
  6. 1 2 Pelanda, Brian. Declarations of Cultural Independence: The Nationalistic Imperative Behind the Passage of Early American Copyright Laws, 1783–1787 58 Journal of the Copyright Society of the U.S.A. 431 (2011).
  7. ↑ Donner, Irah (July 1992). "The Copyright Clause of the U. S. Constitution: Why Did the Framers Include It with Unanimous Approval?". The American Journal of Legal History. 36 (3): 361–378. doi:10.2307/845426. JSTOR   845426.
  8. ↑ Stephan Kinsella  (174 Posts) (2011-12-01). "Thomas Jefferson's Proposal to Limit the Length of Patent and Copyright in the Bill of Rights". Libertarianstandard.com. Retrieved 2012-06-08.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  9. 1 2 Ochoa, Tyler T. (2009–2010). "Protection for Works of Foreign Origin under the 1909 Copyright Act". Santa Clara Computer & High Technology Law Journal. 26: 285. Archived from the original on 2022-10-22. Retrieved 2022-10-22.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  10. ↑ Bowker, R. R. (Richard Rogers) (2012-04-21). Copyright: Its History and Its Law.
  11. ↑ Jane C. Ginsburg, A Tale of Two Copyrights: Literary Property in Revolutionary France and America, 64 Tul. L. Rev. 991, 1003 n.52 (1990).
  12. ↑ Federal Copyright Records 1790-‐‑1800 at 15 (1987)
  13. ↑ E.g., White-Smith Music Pub. Co. v. Apollo Co., 209 U.S. 1, 15 (1908)
  14. ↑ Robinson, Raymond V. (1936). "Confederate copyright entries". The William and Mary Quarterly. 16 (2): 248–266. doi:10.2307/1918805. JSTOR   1918805., pp. 248–9
  15. ↑ "Foreign Relations of the United States Diplomatic Papers, 1933, The American Republics, Volume IV". Office of the Historian. U.S. Department of State. November 10, 1933. Retrieved July 18, 2024.
  16. ↑ "International Copyright Relations of the United States" (PDF). U.S. Copyright Office. May 2024. p. 2. Retrieved July 18, 2024.
  17. ↑ Pharand, Donat (1986). "Canada and the OAS: the Vacant Chair Revisited". Revue Générale de Droit. 17 (3): 429, 4324. doi: 10.7202/1059251ar . ISSN   0035-3086. S2CID   191749791.
  18. ↑ Rogers, Samuel (November 1947). "Copyright Confusion". Canadian Bar Review: 967, 970–971.
  19. ↑ Solberg, Thorvald (July 7, 1924). "Report of the Register Of Copyright for the Fiscal Year 1923-24" (PDF). U.S. Copyright Office. p. 190.
  20. ↑ "By the President of the United States: A Proclamation", 43  Stat.   1932, December 27, 1923.
  21. ↑ Leaffer, Marshall A. (2005). Understanding Copyright Law (Fourth ed.). Newark, NJ: LexisNexis. pp. 523–524. ISBN   0820562335.
  22. ↑ H.R. Rep. No. 1476, 94th Cong., 2d Sess., at 131 (1976)
  23. ↑ Crow v. Wainwright, 720 F.2d 1224 (11th Cir. 1983), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 819 (1984).
  24. ↑ But see New Hampshire v. Nelson 150 N.H. 569 (2004). In Nelson, the defendant's conviction for receiving stolen property was affirmed. The "property" at issue was scanned copies of photographs that the defendant had removed from another's home. The defendant had returned the photographs, and the lack of any intent to permanently deprive the owner of the photos prevented prosecution based on removal of the physical photographs themselves. Thus, Nelson's conviction was based upon making and retaining the scanned copies. The issue of whether the statute was preempted by § 301 was not discussed. Bauer, Joseph P. (Fall 2007). "Addressing the Incoherency of the Preemption Provision of the Copyright Act of 1976". Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment and Technology Law. 10 (1): 1–119, 90, n.383. Archived from the original on 2015-01-12.
  25. ↑ S. Rpt. 94-473
  26. ↑ S. Rpt. 94-473. See also Legislative history of Pub. L. Tooltip Public Law (United States)  94–553
  27. ↑ Bell, Tom W. "Trend of Maximum U.S. General Copyright Term". Personal Website. Retrieved 23 October 2011.; see also Tom W. Bell, "Escape From Copyright: Market Success vs. Statutory Failure in the Protection of Expressive Works," (originally published in the University of Cincinnati Law Review 69), but consult footnote 202 in HTML version found here: http://www.tomwbell.com/writings/(C)Esc.html
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