The Copyright Act Turns 50 (So We’re Reading the Whole Thing)

This year will mark 50 years since the passage of the Copyright Act of 1976. To honor the golden anniversary of what continues to be our governing law, we’re launching a series of blog posts exploring the Copyright Act, section by section. In effect, we’re giving ourselves an enormous reading assignment—all of Title 17—and bringing you along on the journey.

To say the 1976 Act was a monumental change is no understatement. It was only the fourth general revision to copyright since President Washington signed the first copyright act into law in 1790 (the others being in 1831, 1870, and 1909), and it contained many of the most sweeping changes to copyright law since that very first act. Some of the changes have been for the better; others, we might argue with. But as much as we quibble with the some of the ways the law has taken shape, we nonetheless are big fans of copyright at Authors Alliance. It is precisely because we are big fans that we fight so hard for its future.

The 1976 Copyright Act was a complete replacement of Title 17 of the United States Code (which itself is in its centennial year!). The version that passed in 1976 was organized into eight chapters, with each chapter covering a different facet of copyright. Those eight chapters, which form the canonical “Copyright Act,” were:

1. Subject Matter and Scope of Copyright
2. Copyright Ownership and Transfer
3. Duration of Copyright
4. Copyright Notice, Deposit, and Registration
5. Copyright Infringement and Remedies
6. Manufacturing Requirement and Importation
7. Copyright Office
8. Copyright Royalty Tribunal

U.S. copyright law itself has changed significantly since then. In fact, Title 17 has been amended some seventy-nine times (as of this writing) since it was enacted. Some of those amendments have been blockbusters (the Digital Millennium Copyright Act! the Copyright Term Extension Act! the Music Modernization Act!) and others have barely been noticed, even by those of us who pay attention to it professionally. Presently, Title 17 contains fifteen chapters.

Rather than limiting ourselves to the Copyright Act proper, our plan with this project is to review the entirety of Title 17 in its current state. We’ll start from the very beginning (a very good place to start), and then continue all the way through Sec. 1511 (or even beyond, if Congress makes it necessary). We may or may not go in order. We reserve the right to be capricious in that regard.

We’ll look at the history, current issues, technicalities, cultural context, or really anything else that strikes us. We’ll also highlight places where we believe the law can be improved to better achieve its ultimate goal of serving the public. Because nothing is perfect, and the 1976 Act is far from it.

Sometimes, as with some of the sections in chapter one, we’ll have so much to say that limiting it to a single blog post will be a challenge. In other cases, we likely will be reading the text for the first time (superconductors! vessel hull designs!). Sometimes we’ll combine sections where it makes more sense. Some of the posts will be very short. Others . . . well, we’ll try to keep them as short as we can.

We hope you enjoy this experiment!