The Right of Public Display

• Author: Robert A. Gorman
• Profession: University of Virginia School of Law
• Pages: 85

Under the 1909 Act, it was unclear how to treat the public display ocopyrighted works, for example the showing of a painting or sculpturor literary manuscript on television. This form of exploitation did not ficomfortably within the statutory terms "copy" and "performance."

Congress dispelled the uncertainty by providing in section 106(5) of th1976 Copyright Act for the exclusive right "to display the copyrightework publicly." This right applies to all copyrighted works except fosound recordings (for obvious reasons); the showing of a motion picturor other audiovisual work is treated as a "performance," but the showinof "individual images of a motion picture or other audiovisual work" falls within the display right.

Section 101 defines the "display" of a work as the showing of "a copof it, either directly or by means of a film, slide, television image, or another device or process or, in the case of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, to show individual images nonsequentially." The "public"

display of a work is defined in precisely the same manner as the publiperformance of a work, as discussed just above (at pp. 83-84). Thus, tshow a painting or sculpture on a television broadcast is a public displaof the work, which mutt _he authrorized in order to ovoid infringement.

To show the text of a literary work on a computer screen is also a displarather than a "copy," and will infringe if the screen display is projecteto the "public" as that is defined in section 101, including an aggregate odisplays to individual computer users at individual terminals.

Were the language of section 106(5) not conditioned in any way, thowner of a copyrighted work of art would infringe by displaying thwork in a public exhibition space--or even by holding it up in a classroom or other public...