Overview of the Copyright Act of 1976

It is through the federal law of copyright that Congress pursues the constitutional mandate "to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts." The first copyright act-passed in 1790 and covering books, maps and charts-announced certain principles that have shaped our federal law through the bicentennial year, including a rather short term of protection, a renewal copyright, and a preoccupation with "published" works, with the regulation of unpublished works being largely relegated to state law. The better part of this century has been dominated by a copyright statute enacted in 1909, before the discovery or full commercial development of radio, television, the phonograph, the photograph, the motion picture, the computer, the photocopy machine. The growth of these media for the creation and dissemination of creative works, the resulting growth in the number of persons whose livelihood depends on these media, and the expansion of our leisure time have all combined to focus attention upon the obsolescence of the 1909 Act. After a painstaking reform effort over a period of twenty years, Congress in 1976 approved a new Copyright Act, most of the provisions of which became effective on January 1, 1978. The purpose of this Essay is to discuss the principal features of the new law. All lawyers should have some familiarity with the basic contours of our copyright law. It no longer touches the lives of a minuscule segment of our society, witness the number of times we or our family or friends have written a research piece for school (which we want to protect against the poaching of our academic supervisor), or have written a poem or song, or have formed a rock group or even cut a phonograph record or tape, or have gotten an idea for a new board