Landmark Publications

The Copyright ACT Landmark Publications

THIS CASEBOOK contains a selection of U. S. Court of Appeals decisions that analyze, interpret and apply provisions of the Copyright Act. * * * Article I, Section 8, Clause 8, of the Constitution empowers Congress "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." U. S. Const. art. I, § 8, cl. 8. The very first Congress took up that charge in the Copyright Act of 1790, which granted authors of certain works "the sole right and liberty of printing, reprinting, publishing and vending" those works "for the term of fourteen years." Act of May 31, 1790, § 1, 1 Stat. 124. * * * Under the current Act, "[c]opyright protection subsists ... in original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression." 17 U. S. C. § 102(a). This copyright, which "vests initially in the author or authors of the work," id. § 201(a), and generally endures for at least "70 years after the author's death," id. § 302(a), endows authors with "exclusive rights" to use or authorize the use of their work in six statutorily specified ways, including "reproduc[ing] the copyrighted work" and "distribut[ing] copies ... of the copyrighted work to the public," id. § 106. "Anyone who violates any of the exclusive rights of the copyright owner ... is an infringer of the copyright," id. § 501(a), and may be subject to a number of equitable and legal remedies, id. §§ 502-505. Reflecting copyright's balance between private ownership and public welfare, the Act has long recognized that certain "fair use[s]" of a copyrighted work do not constitute infringement. Id. § 107. Not all uses of a copyrighted work are "within the exclusive domain of the copyright owner," the Supreme Court has explained, "some are in the public domain." Sony Corp., 464 U. S. at 433, 104 S. Ct. 774.