The Renewal Format

AuthorRobert A. Gorman
ProfessionUniversity of Virginia School of Law
Pages38

Under section 24 of the 1909 Copyright Act, the author or a person claiming copyright (for example, by way of an assignment) was entitled to a twenty-eight year initial term of copyright protection. Although such protection was available for most unpublished works, the typical work protected by the statute was a work that had been "published," i.e., distributed in copies to the public, with proper notice of copyright. Copyright protection continued for twenty-eight years from the date of publication, and could be continued for another twenty-eight year term upon timely application by the person designated in the statute:

The author of such work, if still living, or the widow, widower, or children of the author, if the author be not living, or if such author, widow, widower, or children be not living, then the author's executors, or in the absence of a will, his next of kin shall be entitled to a renewal and extension of the copyright in such work for a further term of twenty-eight years when application for such renewal and extension shall have been made to the Copyright Office and duly registered therein within one year prior to the expiration of the original term of copyright.

The renewal term, in effect, granted a statutory reversion of interest.

Congress's purpose was principally to afford to the author or the author's family an opportunity to claim ownership and to make new transfers for a new remuneration, free and clear of any transfers of or encumbrances on the initial copyright term. An author who had conveyed copyright before or shortly after the publication of his or her work, at a time when its economic value was unknown or speculative, was given by Congress an opportunity to market the copyright a second time, when its economic value was more readily determinable.

If the author were not alive in the twenty-eighth year of the initial copyright term, the right to apply for and to claim the renewal copyright fell to the next available statutory successor. If the author left a widow, widower or children, such person(s) would become the owner(s) of the copyright for the renewal term. Despite the precise statutory language, the Supreme Court held that, in a case in which the author was outlived by a widow or widower and one or more children, all of those survivors would take as a class, and the surviving spouse would not take all.[76] The Court has never definitively determined whether the spouse takes half and the children divide the other half or whcthcr all of the suiviving family members share the copyright equally.

If the author left no widow, widower or children, then section 24 of the 1909 Act provided that the renewal copyright could be claimed by the "author's executors." As interpreted, this provision gave ownership of the renewal term to the executors as trustees for the persons named in the author's will as legatees; the executor was not to hold the renewal copyright on behalf of the author's estate, which would be subject to the claims of creditors. In default of any...

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