1790 Copyright Act

The 1790 Copyright Act was the first copyright statute in the United States. It provided a federal copyright term of 14 years from the date of publication, renewable for an additional 14 years if the author survived the first term.[1]

The 1790 Act's renewable 14-year term applied to existing works (i.e., works already published and works created but not yet published) and future works alike.[2] Congress expanded the federal copyright term to 42 years in 1831 (28 years from publication, renewable for an additional 14 years), and then to 56 years in 1909 (28 years from publication, renewable for an additional 28 years).[3] Both times, Congress applied the new copyright term to existing and future works;[4] to qualify for the 1831 extension, an existing work had to be in its initial copyright term at the time the Act became effective.[5]

In 1976, Congress altered the method for computing federal copyright terms.[6] For works created by identified natural persons, the 1976 Act provided that federal copyright protection would run from the work's creation, not—as in the 1790, 1831, and 1909 Acts—its publication; protection would last until 50 years after the author's death.[7] In these respects, the 1976 Act aligned United States copyright terms with the then-dominant international standard adopted under the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works.[8] For anonymous works, pseudonymous works, and works made for hire, the 1976 Act provided a term of 75 years from publication or 100 years from creation, whichever expired first.[9]

These new copyright terms, the 1976 Act instructed, governed all works not published by its effective date of January 1, 1978, regardless of when the works were created.[10] For published works with existing copyrights as of that date, the 1976 Act granted a copyright term of 75 years from the date of publication, § 304(a) and (b), a 19-year increase over the 56-year term applicable under the 1909 Act.

## References[edit]

1. ↑ Act of May 31, 1790, ch. 15, § 1, 1 Stat. 124 (1790 Act).
2. ↑ Id.
3. ↑ Act of Feb. 3, 1831, ch. 16, §§ 1, 16, 4 Stat. 436, 439 (1831 Act); Act of Mar. 4, 1909, ch. 320, §§ 23-24, 35 Stat. 1080-1081 (1909 Act).
4. ↑ 1831 Act §§ 1, 16; 1909 Act §§ 23-24
5. ↑ 1831 Act §§ 1, 16.
6. ↑ 1976 Act §§ 302-304.
7. ↑ § 302(a).
8. ↑ See H. R. Rep. No. 94-1476, p. 135 (1976).
9. ↑ See § 302(c).
10. ↑ §§ 302-303.