Duration of Copyright Under the 1976 Act

• Author: Robert A. Gorman
• Profession: University of Virginia School of Law
• Pages: 43

The duration of copyright protection under the 1976 Act depends on what the copyright status of the work was on the effective date of the Act, January 1, 1978. Five situations are possible.

(1) If on that date a work was already in the public domain under the 1909 Act or earlier laws, the work remains in the public domain and no copyright protection is available.[83].

(2) If on January 1, 1978, a work was in its initial twenty-eight year copyright term under the 1909 Act, the copyright expires at the end of that term, unless the copyright is renewed by timely application. If it is renewed, the renewal term will last not for twenty-eight years but rather for forty-seven years, the purpose being to afford combined terms of copyright protection lasting seventy-five years. Section 304(a) so provides. Although Congress was interested in extending the period of statutory copyright protection and discarding the renewal format, it nevertheless chose to retain that format for works currently under federal copyright in order to avoid the undue disruption of expectations and transactions.

Works published and copyrighted as recently as 1977 must, therefore, in order to extend copyright beyond twenty-eight years, be renewed by the year 2005, making renewal applications of vital importance for many years in the future.

(3) Under section 304(b) of the 1976 Act, works in their renewal term of copyright as of January 1, 1978, are to be automatically accorded an extended term of protection lasting seventy-five years from the date copyright was originally secured. In effect, the renewal term of such works is extended from twenty-eight years to forty-seven years. Because Congress, as early as 1962, anticipated major imminent changes in the copyright law and particularly an extension of the period of copyright protection, it granted what are known as "interim extensions" of protection for works the renewal term of which was about to expire; these works were thus still in their renewal term when the 1976 Act became effective and had their copyright extended to the full seventy-five year term. For example, a work published and copyrighted in 1920, and renewed in 1948, would in duc course have fallen into the public domain in 1976; by virtue of the interim extensions and section 304(b), the copyright term for that work does not expire until the end of 1995.

(4) Perhaps the most significant step taken by Congress in the 1976 Act with regard to duration was to...