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72-497: The Compendium is directed to policy under the 1976 Copyright Act , as amended. It is now in its third edition, replacing the earlier "Compendium II", which in turn replaced the original Compendium that described policy under the earlier 1909 Copyright Act. The Compendium is an internal manual, and does not have the force of law, unlike the U.S. Copyright Act or Copyright Office regulations . However, some courts have cited to it as persuasive authority and given it deference based on

144-741: A Time article. The 1976 Act, through its terms, displaces all previous copyright laws in the United States insofar as those laws conflict with the Act. Those include prior federal legislation, such as the Copyright Act of 1909, and extend to all relevant common law and state copyright laws. Under section 102 of the Act, copyright protection extends to "original works of authorship 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

216-487: A "pictorial, graphic, or sculptural feature" incorporated into a useful article is eligible for copyright protection, holding that such features are eligible for copyright protection "only if the feature (1) can be perceived as a two- or three-dimensional work of art separate from the useful article and (2) would qualify as a protectable pictorial, graphic, or sculptural work—either on its own or fixed in some other tangible medium of expression—if it were imagined separately from

288-615: A comment period, a revised version of the Compendium was published on September 29. It includes changes taking the Star Athletica, LLC v. Varsity Brands, Inc. , 580 U.S. __ (2017), decision into account. As of April 2022, the January 28, 2021 release is the most current. United States copyright law The copyright law of the United States grants monopoly protection for "original works of authorship". With

360-410: A copyright has the exclusive right to do and authorize others to do the following: A violation of any of the exclusive rights of the copyright holder is a copyright infringement , unless fair use (or a similar affirmative defense) applies. The initial owner of the copyright to a work is the author, unless that work is a "work made for hire". If a work is not a work for hire, then the author will be

432-405: A copyright in a work is distinct from a property right in a copy of the work, where the only existing copy of the work is transferred, the copyright is transferred along with the copy, unless expressly withheld by the author. Section 202 of the 1976 Act retains the property right/copyright distinction, but section 204 eliminates the inconsistent common law by assuming that the copyright is withheld by

504-491: A copyright, can terminate the transfer under certain circumstances. This right to terminate the transfer is absolute and cannot be waived. For works published before 1978, copyrights may revert to the author after 56 years. For example, Paul McCartney reclaimed the U.S. publishing rights to early Beatles songs from Sony Music Publishing , beginning in October 2018. For works published since 1978, copyrights may revert to

576-494: A government employee acting within the course of his or her official duties. The Supreme Court has also ruled that annotated versions of statutes or court decisions at the federal, state, and local level, when such annotations are done by members of the government as part of their duties, are ineligible for copyright in Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, Inc. (2020). There are six basic rights protected by copyright. The owner of

648-489: A matter of longstanding public policy, the U.S. Copyright Office will not register a government edict that has been issued by any state, local, or territorial government, including legislative enactments, judicial decisions, administrative rulings, public ordinances, or similar types of official legal materials. Likewise, the Office will not register a government edict issued by any foreign government or any translation prepared by

720-553: A new copyright act, particularly to protect the rights of authors with the advent of new technologies. 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 ). While the U.S. became a party to

792-420: 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

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864-427: A result, older sound recordings were not subject to the expiration rules that applied to contemporary visual works. Although these could have entered the public domain as a result of government authorship or formal grant by the owner, the practical effect was to render public domain audio virtually nonexistent. Copyright Act of 1976 The Copyright Act of 1976 is a United States copyright law and remains

936-409: A written instrument of conveyance that expressly transfers ownership of the copyright to the intended recipient for a transfer to be effective. 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. In the 1942 New York case Pushman v. New York Graphic Society , for example, the court held that although

1008-544: Is an article having an intrinsic utilitarian function that is not merely to portray the appearance of the article or to convey information. An article that is normally a part of a useful article is considered a "useful article". "the design of a useful article, as defined in this section, shall be considered a pictorial, graphic, or sculptural work only if, and only to the extent that, such design incorporates pictorial, graphic, or sculptural features that can be identified separately from, and are capable of existing independently of,

1080-588: Is heavily relied upon by attorneys and agents dealing with the patent functions of the United States Patent and Trademark Office . A public draft of the third edition of the Compendium was released by the Copyright Office on August 19, 2014. The official version, entitled Compendium of U.S. Copyright Office Practices, Third Edition , was released on December 22, 2014. Proposed revisions to the Compendium were published on June 1, 2017; After

1152-422: Is restricted for commercial uses. Federal, state, and local statutes and court decisions are in the public domain and are ineligible for copyright, a concept known as the government edicts doctrine. It is not difficult to see the motivations behind this: The citizens are the authors of the law, and therefore its owners, regardless of who actually drafts the provisions, because the law derives its authority from

1224-501: Is some "creative" or "original" act involved in developing the compilation, such as in the selection (deciding which facts to include or exclude) and arrangement (how facts are displayed and in what order). Copyright protection in compilations is limited to the selection and arrangement of facts , not to the facts themselves. The Supreme Court decision in Feist Publications, Inc., v. Rural Telephone Service Co. clarified

1296-471: Is sought. Deposits can be made through the Copyright Office's eCO System. This deposit requirement serves two purposes. First, if a copyright infringement lawsuit arises, the owner may prove that the material that is infringed is exactly the same material for which the owner has secured a registration. Second, this requirement helps the Library of Congress build its collection of works. Failure to comply with

1368-465: Is to "minimize any disruptive impact on the structure of the industries involved and on generally prevailing industry practices". Critics of the law have questioned this aspect of it, as it discourages innovation and perpetuates older businesses. Streaming music on a portable device is mainstream today, but digital radio and music streaming websites such as Pandora are fighting an uphill battle when it comes to copyright protection. 17 USC 801(b)(1)(D) of

1440-670: 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". Section 102(b) excludes several categories from copyright protection, partly codifying the concept of idea–expression distinction from Baker v. Selden . It requires that "in no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of

1512-594: The "Mickey Mouse Protection Act", because it prevented the copyright from expiring on the first commercial success of the Disney cartoon character Mickey Mouse ), which increased it even more, to 95 years after publication (120 years after creation for unpublished works), or the life of the author plus 70 years, whichever ends earlier. The Congress shall have Power [...] to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors

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1584-544: The "expression" of an idea, but copyright does not protect the "idea" itself. This distinction is called the idea–expression dichotomy . The distinction between "idea" and "expression" is fundamental to copyright law. From the Copyright Act of 1976 ( 17 U.S.C.   § 102 ): In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of

1656-648: 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 as title 17 of the United States Code on October 19, 1976, when President Gerald Ford signed it into law. The law went into effect on January 1, 1978. At

1728-411: The Copyright Act states that Copyright Royalty Judges should "minimize any disruptive impact on the structure of the industries involved and on generally prevailing industry practices". "Much of the initial drafting of the '76 Act was by the Copyright Office, which chaired a series of meetings with prominent industry copyright lawyers throughout the 1960s". Some believe that Section 106 was designed with

1800-409: The Copyright Office as a defendant, requiring the court to determine the copyrightability of the work before addressing the issue of infringement. The Act also codified the ability for writers and other artists that license their work to others to act on termination rights 35 years after the publication of the work. This was intended to allow these people to renegotiate licenses at the later period if

1872-412: The Copyright Office's specialized experience and broader investigations and information. For some issues that are not addressed in the statute or regulations (for example, whether to issue a registration to a government body claiming a copyright in its enacted laws), it can provide guidance as to the Copyright Office's practice. The Compendium is sometimes, but not often, used by attorneys in dealings with

1944-536: The Copyright Office. A Westlaw search of the FIP-CS database which contains documents from the U.S. Supreme Court, Courts of Appeals, District Courts, Bankruptcy Courts, Court of Federal Claims, U.S. Tax Court, Military Courts, and related federal and territorial courts showed fewer than fifty citations of the Compendium by the courts total. This is in contrast to, for example, the Manual of Patent Examining Procedure , which

2016-586: The Founding Fathers was 14 years, plus the ability to renew it one time, for 14 more. 40 years later , the initial term was changed to 28 years. It was not until a full 180 years after its establishment that it was significantly extended beyond that, through the Copyright Act of 1976 to "Either 75 years or the life of the author plus 50 years" and the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 (also called

2088-523: The UCC in 1955, Congress passed Public Law 743 in order to modify 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 Senate in 1964, but the original version of

2160-495: The US Copyright Office's website. The Copyright Office reviews applications for obvious errors or lack of copyrightable subject matter and then issues a certificate of registration. The Copyright Office does not compare the author's new work against a collection of existing works or otherwise check for infringement. The United States Copyright Office requires a deposit copy of the work for which copyright registration

2232-514: The United States before 1929 are in the public domain ; works created but not published or copyrighted before January 1, 1978, may be protected until 2047. For works that received their copyright before 1978, a renewal had to be filed in the work's 28th year with the Copyright Office for its term of protection to be extended. The need for renewal was eliminated by the Copyright Renewal Act of 1992 , but works that had already entered

Compendium of U.S. Copyright Office Practices - Misplaced Pages Continue

2304-507: The aid of a machine or device". The Act defines "works of authorship" as any of the following: An eighth category, 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

2376-468: The author unless it is expressly transferred. According to section 408 of the Act, registration of a work with the Copyright Office is not a prerequisite for copyright protection. 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

2448-518: The author's death". In addition, the Act created a static 75-year term (dated from the date of publication) for anonymous works, pseudonymous works, and works made for hire . The extension term for works copyrighted before 1978 that had not already entered the public domain was increased from 28 years to 47 years, giving a total term of 75 years. In 1998, the Copyright Term Extension Act further extended copyright protection to

2520-478: The circumstances. Transfers of copyright always involve one or more of the exclusive rights of copyright. For instance, a license may provide a right to perform a work, but not to reproduce it or to prepare a derivative work (adaptation right). The terms of the license are governed by the applicable contract law; however, there is substantial academic debate about to what extent the Copyright Act preempts state contract law principles. An author, after transferring

2592-446: The consent of the public, expressed through the democratic process. Three key Supreme Court cases established this government edicts doctrine: Wheaton v. Peters (1834), Banks v. Manchester (1888), and Callaghan v. Myers (1888). The doctrine was codified into the United States Code at 17 U.S.C.   § 105 via the Copyright Act of 1976 . The Copyright Office upholds this doctrine within its own regulations: As

2664-445: The deposit requirement, as modified by Copyright Office regulations, is punishable by fine, but does not result in forfeiture of copyright. The use of copyright notices is optional. The Berne Convention , amending US copyright law in 1989, makes copyright automatic. However, the lack of notice of copyright using these marks may have consequences in terms of reduced damages in an infringement lawsuit—using notices of this form may reduce

2736-569: The designs 'hav[e] … graphic … qualities … [and could be] applied … on a painter's canvas,' the test for copyrightability is met." Works created by the federal government are not copyrightable. This restriction on copyright applies to publications produced by the United States Government, and its agents or employees within the scope of their employment. However, government contractors are generally not considered employees, and their works may be subject to copyright. Additionally,

2808-416: The duration of the author's life plus 70 years for general copyrights and to 95 years from date of publication or 120 years from date of creation, whichever comes first, for works made for hire. Works copyrighted before 1978 have a duration of protection that depends on a variety of factors. Section 204 of the Act governs the transfer of ownership of copyrights. The section requires a copyright holder to sign

2880-420: The effectiveness of copyright law in achieving its stated purpose is a matter of debate. The United States copyright law protects "original works of authorship" fixed in a tangible medium, including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and other intellectual works. This protection is available to both published and unpublished works. Copyright law includes the following types of works: Copyright law protects

2952-610: The exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries. The goal of copyright law, as set forth in the Copyright Clause of the US Constitution , is "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." This includes incentivizing the creation of art, literature, architecture, music, and other works of authorship. As with many legal doctrines,

Compendium of U.S. Copyright Office Practices - Misplaced Pages Continue

3024-504: The exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." The United States Copyright Office handles copyright registration, recording of copyright transfers , and other administrative aspects of copyright law. United States copyright law traces its lineage back to the British Statute of Anne , which influenced the first U.S. federal copyright law, the Copyright Act of 1790 . The length of copyright established by

3096-485: The fair use exception. Copyright is automatically granted to the author of an original work (that otherwise meets the basic copyright requirements, discussed above). Registration is not necessary. However, registration amplifies a copyright holder's rights in a number of ways. Registration, or refusal of registration, is required before a lawsuit can be filed, and registration creates the possibility for enhanced "statutory" damages. A copyright can be registered online at

3168-408: 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 , 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 Act

3240-447: The form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work. For example, a paper describing a political theory is copyrightable. The paper is the expression of the author's ideas about the political theory. The theory itself is just an idea , and is not copyrightable. Another author is free to describe the same theory in their own words without infringing on the original author's copyright. Although fundamental,

3312-411: The form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work." There are separate copyright protections for musical compositions and sound recordings. Composition copyright includes lyrics and unless self-published, is usually transferred under the terms of a publishing contract. Many record companies will also require that sound recording copyright be transferred to them as part of

3384-421: The government can purchase and hold the copyright to works created by third parties. The government may restrict access to works it has produced through other mechanisms. For instance, classified materials may not be protected by copyright, but are restricted by other applicable laws. Even in case of non-classified materials, there may be specific prohibitions against usage, such as the presidential seal , which

3456-625: The idea–expression dichotomy is often difficult to put into practice. Reasonable people can disagree about where the unprotectable "idea" ends and the protectable "expression" begins. As Judge Learned Hand put it, "Obviously, no principle can be stated as to when an imitator has gone beyond copying the 'idea,' and has borrowed its 'expression.' Decisions must therefore inevitably be ad hoc." Mere facts are not copyrightable. However, compilations of facts are treated differently, and may be copyrightable material. The Copyright Act, § 103 , allows copyright protection for "compilations", as long as there

3528-438: The initial copyright owner. The author generally is the person who conceives of the copyrightable expression and "fixes" it in a "tangible medium of expression." Special rules apply when multiple authors are involved: Three types of transfers exist for copyrighted works. The first two, assignment and exclusive licenses, require the transfer to be in writing. Nonexclusive licenses need not be in writing and they may be implied by

3600-399: The intent to maximize litigation to the benefit of the legal industry, and gives too much power and protection to the copyright holder while weakening fair use. Critics of the Copyright Act say that Pandora will never be profitable if something does not change because "services like Pandora already pay over 60 percent of their revenue in licensing fees while others pay far less for delivering

3672-478: The likelihood of a defense of "innocent infringement" being successful. Copyright protection generally lasts for 70 years after the death of the author. If the work was a "work for hire", then copyright persists for 120 years after creation or 95 years after publication, whichever is shorter. For works created before 1978, the copyright duration rules are complicated. However, works published before January 1, 1929 (other than sound recordings), have made their way into

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3744-520: The original author after 35 years. 17 U.S.C.   § 203(a) states that the author must write a letter requesting a termination of the original copyright grant at least two years before the effective termination date. Title 17, United States Code, Section 108 places limitations on exclusive copyrights for the purposes of certain limited reproduction by a public library or an archive. Title 17, United States Code, Section 107 also places statutory limits on copyright which are commonly referred to as

3816-545: 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. US Register of Copyrights Barbara Ringer took an active role in drafting

3888-642: The public domain by non-renewal did not regain copyright protection. Therefore, works published before 1964 that were not renewed are in the public domain. Before 1972, sound recordings were not subject to federal copyright, but copying was nonetheless regulated under various state torts and statutes, some of which had no duration limit. The Sound Recording Amendment of 1971 extended federal copyright to recordings fixed on or after February 15, 1972, and declared that recordings fixed before that date would remain subject to state or common law copyright. Subsequent amendments had extended this latter provision until 2067. As

3960-671: The public domain. United States copyright law was last generally revised by the Copyright Act of 1976 , codified in Title 17 of the United States Code . The United States Constitution explicitly grants Congress the power to create copyright law under Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8, known as the Copyright Clause . Under the Copyright Clause, Congress has the power "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors

4032-465: The public domain. All copyright terms run to the end of the calendar year in which they would otherwise expire. For works published or registered before 1978, the maximum copyright duration is 95 years from the date of publication, if copyright was renewed during the 28th year following publication. Copyright renewal has been automatic since the Copyright Renewal Act of 1992 . For works created before 1978, but not published or registered before 1978,

4104-841: The requirements for copyright in compilations. The Feist case denied copyright protection to a "white pages" phone book (a compilation of telephone numbers, listed alphabetically). In making this ruling, the Supreme Court rejected the " sweat of the brow " doctrine. That is, copyright protection requires creativity, and no amount of hard work ("sweat of the brow") can transform a non-creative list (like an alphabetical listing of phone numbers) into copyrightable subject matter. A mechanical, non-selective collection of facts (e.g., alphabetized phone numbers) cannot be protected by copyright. Copyright protects artistic expression. Copyright does not protect useful articles, or objects with some useful functionality. The Copyright Act states: A "useful article"

4176-479: The right to perform a sound recording by means of digital audio. 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 federal courts had been using a common law form of the doctrine since the 1840s (an English version of fair use appeared much earlier). The Act codified this common law doctrine with little modification. Under section 107,

4248-527: The same service. As a result, services like Pandora have been unable to see profitability and sustainability is already in question." An increase in subscription fees would likely be an end to Pandora's business. The termination right clause only started taking effect in 2013, with notably Victor Willis terminating rights on the songs he had written for The Village People . A lawsuit resulted from this action Scorpio Music, et al. v. Willis in 2012 (after Willis had filed notice of termination to Scorpio Music ,

4320-608: The standard §302 copyright duration of 70 years from the author's death also applies. Prior to 1978, works had to be published or registered to receive copyright protection. Upon the effective date of the 1976 Copyright Act (which was January 1, 1978) this requirement was removed and these unpublished, unregistered works received protection. However, Congress intended to provide an incentive for these authors to publish their unpublished works. To provide that incentive, these works, if published before 2003, would not have their protection expire before 2048. All copyrightable works published in

4392-429: 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

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4464-597: The statute. Before the 1976 Act, the last major revision to statutory copyright law in the United States occurred in 1909. In deliberating the Act, Congress noted that extensive technological advances had occurred since the adoption of the 1909 Act . Television , motion pictures , 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. Barbara Ringer , who later became US Register of Copyrights in 1973, began taking an active role in advocating for and drafting

4536-481: The surface of the cheerleading uniforms were separated from the uniform and applied in another medium—for example, on a painter's canvas—they would qualify as "two-dimensional ... works of ... art". And imaginatively removing the surface decorations from the uniforms and applying them in another medium would not replicate the uniform itself. Indeed, respondents have applied the designs in this case to other media of expression—different types of clothing—without replicating

4608-464: 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 Sherwood Anderson 's Winesburg, Ohio ". The other intent of the extension was to protect authors' rights "for life plus 50 years—the most common term internationally and the one Twain fought for in his lifetime". Further extensions of both term and scope had been desired by some, as outlined in

4680-573: The terms of an album release, however the owner of the composition copyright is not always the same as the owner of the sound recording copyright. Section 106 granted five exclusive rights to copyright holders, all of which are subject to the remaining sections in chapter 1 (currently, sections 107–122): A sixth exclusive right was later included in 1995 by the Digital Performance Right in Sound Recordings Act :

4752-413: The time, the law was considered to be a fair compromise between publishers' and authors' rights. Barbara Ringer called the new law "a balanced compromise that comes down on the authors' and creators' side in almost every instance." The law was almost exclusively discussed in publishers' and librarians' journals, with little discussion in the mainstream press. The claimed advantage of the law's extension of

4824-525: The uniform. The decorations are therefore separable from the uniforms and eligible for copyright protection. This produces a relatively low threshold for pictorial, graphic, or sculptural features on useful articles to be eligible for copyright protection, which one commentator clearly highlighted: the Star Athletica decision "really has ensured that all but the subtlest graphic designs will be able to gain copyright protection...once we determine that

4896-444: The useful article into which it is incorporated." Star Athletica began as a suit by Varsity Brands against Star Athletica for infringing the copyright of five cheerleader uniform designs. Applying its new test to the cheerleader uniform designs, the court said: First, one can identify the decorations as features having pictorial, graphic, or sculptural qualities. Second, if the arrangement of colors, shapes, stripes, and chevrons on

4968-528: The utilitarian aspects of the article." However, many industrial designers create works that are both artistic and functional. Under these circumstances, copyright law only protects the artistic expression of such a work, and only to the extent that the artistic expression can be separated from its utilitarian function. In 2017, the US Supreme Court granted certiorari in the case Star Athletica, L. L. C. v. Varsity Brands, Inc. to determine when

5040-477: The value of the original work was not apparent at the time or creation. This protection only applies to works made after 1978, and does not apply to works made for hire. The law requires the creator to issue notice of termination at least 2 years prior to the 35-year date giving the rights holder time to prepare. One of the functions of the Copyright Royalty Judges defined by the Copyright Act

5112-407: 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. Even if registration is denied, however, an infringement action can continue if the creator of the work joins

5184-414: Was later amended to extend the fair use defense to unpublished works. Previous copyright law set the duration of copyright protection at 28 years with a possibility of a 28 year extension, for a total maximum term of 56 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 fifty years after

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