|
Online Attorney
he enactment of the Uruguay Round
Agreements Act, if the source country of the derivative work is
an eligible country on such date, or
"(ii) before the date of adherence or proclamation, if the
source country of the derivative work is not an eligible country
on such date of enactment,
a reliance party may continue to exploit that work for the duration
of the restored copyright if the reliance party pays to the owner
of the restored copyright reasonable compensation for conduct which
would be subject to a remedy for infringement but for the
provisions of this paragraph."
Subsec. (e)(1)(B)(ii). Pub. L. 105-80, Sec. 2(2), struck out at
end "Such list shall also be published in the Federal Register on
an annual basis for the first 2 years after the applicable date of
restoration."
Subsec. (h)(2), (3). Pub. L. 105-80, Sec. 2(3), (4), amended
pars. (2) and (3) generally. Prior to amendment, pars. (2) and (3)
read as follows:
"(2) The 'date of restoration' of a restored copyright is the
later of -
"(A) the date on which the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects
of Intellectual Property referred to in section 101(d)(15) of the
Uruguay Round Agreements Act enters into force with respect to
the United States, if the source country of the restored work is
a nation adhering to the Berne Convention or a WTO member country
on such date; or
"(B) the date of adherence or proclamation, in the case of any
other source country of the restored work.
"(3) The term 'eligible country' means a nation, other than the
United States, that is a WTO member country, adheres to the Berne
Convention, or is subject to a proclamation under subsection (g)."
1996 - Subsec. (h)(3). Pub. L. 104-295 substituted "subsection
(g)" for "section 104A(g)".
1994 - Pub. L. 103-465 substituted "Copyright in restored works"
for "Copyright in certain motion pictures" as section catchline and
amended text generally, substituting present provisions for
provisions restoring copyright in certain motion pictures and
providing for effective date of protection as well as use of
previously owned copies.
EFFECTIVE DATE OF 1998 AMENDMENT
Subsec. (h)(1)(A), (B), (E), (3)(A), (B), (E) of this section and
amendment by section 102(c)(4), (5) of Pub. L. 105-304 effective
Oct. 28, 1998, except as otherwise provided, subsec. (h)(1)(C),
(3)(C) of this section effective Mar. 6, 2002, and subsec.
(h)(1)(D), (3)(D) of this section and amendment by section
102(c)(3) of Pub. L. 105-304 effective May 20, 2002, see section
105(a), (b)(1)(C), (D), (2)(D)-(F) of Pub. L. 105-304, set out as a
note under section 101 of this title.
EFFECTIVE DATE
Section effective on the date the North American Free Trade
Agreement enters into force with respect to the United States [Jan.
1, 1994], see section 335(a) of Pub. L. 103-182, set out in an
Effective Date of 1993 Amendment note under section 1052 of Title
15, Commerce and Trade.
URUGUAY ROUND AGREEMENTS: ENTRY INTO FORCE
The Uruguay Round Agreements, including the World Trade
Organization Agreement and agreements annexed to that Agreement, as
referred to in section 3511(d) of Title 19, Customs Duties, entered
into force with respect to the United States on Jan. 1, 1995. See
note set out under section 3511 of Title 19.
-SECREF-
SECTION REFERRED TO IN OTHER SECTIONS
This section is referred to in section 109 of this title.
-End-
-CITE-
17 USC Sec. 105 01/19/04
-EXPCITE-
TITLE 17 - COPYRIGHTS
CHAPTER 1 - SUBJECT MATTER AND SCOPE OF COPYRIGHT
-HEAD-
Sec. 105. Subject matter of copyright: United States Government
works
-STATUTE-
Copyright protection under this title is not available for any
work of the United States Government, but the United States
Government is not precluded from receiving and holding copyrights
transferred to it by assignment, bequest, or otherwise.
-SOURCE-
(Pub. L. 94-553, title I, Sec. 101, Oct. 19, 1976, 90 Stat. 2546.)
-MISC1-
HISTORICAL AND REVISION NOTES
HOUSE REPORT NO. 94-1476
Scope of the Prohibition. The basic premise of section 105 of the
bill is the same as that of section 8 of the present law [section 8
of former title 17] - that works produced for the U.S. Government
by its officers and employees should not be subject to copyright.
The provision applies the principle equally to unpublished and
published works.
The general prohibition against copyright in section 105 applies
to "any work of the United States Government," which is defined in
section 101 as "a work prepared by an officer or employee of the
United States Government as part of that person's official duties."
Under this definition a Government official or employee would not
be prevented from securing copyright in a work written at that
person's own volition and outside his or her duties, even though
the subject matter involves the Government work or professional
field of the official or employee. Although the wording of the
definition of "work of the United States Government" differs
somewhat from that of the definition of "work made for hire," the
concepts are intended to be construed in the same way.
A more difficult and far-reaching problem is whether the
definition should be broadened to prohibit copyright in works
prepared under U.S. Government contract or grant. As the bill is
written, the Government agency concerned could determine in each
case whether to allow an independent contractor or grantee, to
secure copyright in works prepared in whole or in part with the use
of Government funds. The argument that has been made against
allowing copyright in this situation is that the public should not
be required to pay a "double subsidy," and that it is inconsistent
to prohibit copyright in works by Government employees while
permitting private copyrights in a growing body of works created by
persons who are paid with Government funds. Those arguing in favor
of potential copyright protection have stressed the importance of
copyright as an incentive to creation and dissemination in this
situation, and the basically different policy considerations,
applicable to works written by Government employees and those
applicable to works prepared by private organizations with the use
of Federal funds.
The bill deliberately avoids making any sort of outright,
unqualified prohibition against copyright in works prepared under
Government contract or grant. There may well be cases where it
would be in the public interest to deny copyright in the writings
generated by Government research contracts and the like; it can be
assumed that, where a Government agency commissions a work for its
own use merely as an alternative to having one of its own employees
prepare the work, the right to secure a private copyright would be
withheld. However, there are almost certainly many other cases
where the denial of copyright protection would be unfair or would
hamper the production and publication of important works. Where,
under the particular circumstances, Congress or the agency involved
finds that the need to have a work freely available outweighs the
need of the private author to secure copyright, the problem can be
dealt with by specific legislation, agency regulations, or
contractual restrictions.
The prohibition on copyright protection for United States
Government works is not intended to have any effect on protection
of these works abroad. Works of the governments of most other
countries are copyrighted. There are no valid policy reasons for
denying such protection to United States Government works in
foreign countries, or for precluding the Government from making
licenses for the use of its works abroad.
The effect of section 105 is intended to place all works of the
United States Government, published or unpublished, in the public
domain. This means that the individual Government official or
employee who wrote the work could not secure copyright in it or
restrain its dissemination by the Government or anyone else, but it
also means that, as far as the copyright law is concerned, the
Government could not restrain the employee or official from
disseminating the work if he or she chooses to do so. The use of
the term "work of the United States Government" does not mean that
a work falling within the definition of that term is the property
of the U.S. Government.
LIMITED EXCEPTION FOR NATIONAL TECHNICAL INFORMATION SERVICE
At the House hearings in 1975 the U.S. Department of Commerce
called attention to its National Technical Information Service
(NTIS), which has a statutory mandate, under Chapter 23 [Sec. 1151
et seq.] of Title 15 of the U.S. Code, to operate a clearinghouse
for the collection and dissemination of scientific, technical and
engineering information. Under its statute, NTIS is required to be
as self-sustaining as possible, and not to force the general public
to bear publishing costs that are for private benefit. The
Department urged an amendment to section 105 that would allow it to
secure copyright in NTIS publications both in the United States and
abroad, noting that a precedent exists in the Standard Reference
Data Act (15 U.S.C. Sec. 290(e) [Sec. 290e]).
In response to this request the Committee adopted a limited
exception to the general prohibition in section 105, permitting the
Secretary of Commerce to "secure copyright for a limited term not
to exceed five years, on behalf of the United States as author or
copyright owner" in any NTIS publication disseminated pursuant to
15 U.S.C. Chapter 23 [Sec. 1151 et seq.]. In order to "secure
copyright" in a work under this amendment the Secretary would be
required to publish the work with a copyright notice, and the
five-year term would begin upon the date of first publication.
Proposed Saving Clause. Section 8 of the statute now in effect
[section 8 of former title 17] includes a saving clause intended to
make clear that the copyright protection of a private work is not
affected if the work is published by the Government. This provision
serves a real purpose in the present law because of the ambiguity
of the undefined term "any publication of the United States
Government." Section 105 of the bill, however, uses the operative
term "work of the United States Government" and defines it in such
a way that privately written works are clearly excluded from the
prohibition; accordingly, a saving clause becomes superfluous.
Retention of a saving clause has been urged on the ground that
the present statutory provision is frequently cited, and that
having the provision expressly stated in the law would avoid
questions and explanations. The committee here observes: (1) there
is nothing in section 105 that would relieve the Government of its
obligation to secure permission in order to publish a copyrighted
work; and (2) publication or other use by the Government of a
private work would not affect its copyright protection in any way.
The question of use of copyrighted material in documents published
by the Congress and its Committees is discussed below in connection
with section 107.
Works of the United States Postal Service. The intent of section
105 [this section] is to restrict the prohibition against
Government copyright to works written by employees of the United
States Government within the scope of their official duties. In
accordance with the objectives of the Postal Reorganization Act of
1970 [Pub. L. 91-375, which enacted title 39, Postal Service], this
section does not apply to works created by employees of the United
States Postal Service. In addition to enforcing the criminal
statutes proscribing the forgery or counterfeiting of postage
stamps, the Postal Service could, if it chooses, use the copyright
law to prevent the reproduction of postage stamp designs for
private or commercial non-postal services (for example, in
philatelic publications and catalogs, in general advertising, in
art reproductions, in textile designs, and so forth). However, any
copyright claimed by the Postal Service in its works, including
postage stamp designs, would be subject to the same conditions,
formalities, and time limits as other copyrightable works.
-SECREF-
SECTION REFERRED TO IN OTHER SECTIONS
This section is referred to in title 15 section 290e; title 36
section 2114.
-End-
-CITE-
17 USC Sec. 106 01/19/04
-EXPCITE-
TITLE 17 - COPYRIGHTS
CHAPTER 1 - SUBJECT MATTER AND SCOPE OF COPYRIGHT
-HEAD-
Sec. 106. Exclusive rights in copyrighted works
-STATUTE-
Subject to sections 107 through 122, the owner of copyright under
this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of
the following:
(1) to reproduce the copyrighted work in copies or
phonorecords;
(2) to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted
work;
(3) to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted
work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by
rental, lease, or lending;
(4) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and
choreographic works, pantomimes, and motion pictures and other
audiovisual works, to perform the copyrighted work publicly;
(5) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and
choreographic works, pantomimes, and pictorial, graphic, or
sculptural works, including the individual images of a motion
picture or other audiovisual work, to display the copyrighted
work publicly; and
(6) in the case of sound recordings, to perform the copyrighted
work publicly by means of a digital audio transmission.
-SOURCE-
(Pub. L. 94-553, title I, Sec. 101, Oct. 19, 1976, 90 Stat. 2546;
Pub. L. 101-318, Sec. 3(d), July 3, 1990, 104 Stat. 288; Pub. L.
101-650, title VII, Sec. 704(b)(2), Dec. 1, 1990, 104 Stat. 5134;
Pub. L. 104-39, Sec. 2, Nov. 1, 1995, 109 Stat. 336; Pub. L.
106-44, Sec. 1(g)(2), Aug. 5, 1999, 113 Stat. 222; Pub. L. 107-273,
div. C, title III, Sec. 13210(4)(A), Nov. 2, 2002, 116 Stat. 1909.)
-MISC1-
HISTORICAL AND REVISION NOTES
HOUSE REPORT NO. 94-1476
General Scope of Copyright. The five fundamental rights that the
bill gives to copyright owners - the exclusive rights of
reproduction, adaptation, publication, performance, and display -
are stated generally in section 106. These exclusive rights, which
comprise the so-called "bundle of rights" that is a copyright, are
cumulative and may overlap in some cases. Each of the five
enumerated rights may be subdivided indefinitely and, as discussed
below in connection with section 201, each subdivision of an
exclusive right may be owned and enforced separately.
The approach of the bill is to set forth the copyright owner's
exclusive rights in broad terms in section 106, and then to provide
various limitations, qualifications, or exemptions in the 12
sections that follow. Thus, everything in section 106 is made
"subject to sections 107 through 118", and must be read in
conjunction with those provisions.
The exclusive rights accorded to a copyright owner under section
106 are "to do and to authorize" any of the activities specified in
the five numbered clauses. Use of the phrase "to authorize" is
intended to avoid any questions as to the liability of contributory
infringers. For example, a person who lawfully acquires an
authorized copy of a motion picture would be an infringer if he or
she engages in the business of renting it to others for purposes of
unauthorized public performance.
Rights of Reproduction, Adaptation, and Publication. The first
three clauses of section 106, which cover all rights under a
copyright except those of performance and display, extend to every
kind of copyrighted work. The exclusive rights encompassed by these
clauses, though closely related, are independent; they can
generally be characterized as rights of copying, recording,
adaptation, and publishing. A single act of infringement may
violate all of these rights at once, as where a publisher
reproduces, adapts, and sells copies of a person's copyrighted work
as part of a publishing venture. Infringement takes place when any
one of the rights is violated: where, for example, a printer
reproduces copies without selling them or a retailer sells copies
without having anything to do with their reproduction. The
references to "copies or phonorecords," although in the plural, are
intended here and throughout the bill to include the singular (1
U.S.C. Sec. 1).
Reproduction. - Read together with the relevant definitions in
section 101, the right "to reproduce the copyrighted work in copies
or phonorecords" means the right to produce a material object in
which the work is duplicated, transcribed, imitated, or simulated
in a fixed form from which it can be "perceived, reproduced, or
otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a
machine or device." As under the present law, a copyrighted work
would be infringed by reproducing it in whole or in any substantial
part, and by duplicating it exactly or by imitation or simulation.
Wide departures or variations from the copyrighted work would still
be an infringement as long as the author's "expression" rather than
merely the author's "ideas" are taken. An exception to this general
principle, applicable to the reproduction of copyrighted sound
recordings, is specified in section 114.
"Reproduction" under clause (1) of section 106 is to be
distinguished from "display" under clause (5). For a work to be
"reproduced," its fixation in tangible form must be "sufficiently
permanent or stable to permit it to be perceived, reproduced, or
otherwise communicated for a period of more than transitory
duration." Thus, the showing of images on a screen or tube would
not be a violation of clause (1), although it might come within the
scope of clause (5).
Preparation of Derivative Works. - The exclusive right to prepare
derivative works, specified separately in clause (2) of section
106, overlaps the exclusive right of reproduction to some extent.
It is broader than that right, however, in the sense that
reproduction requires fixation in copies or phonorecords, whereas
the preparation of a derivative work, such as a ballet, pantomime,
or improvised performance, may be an infringement even though
nothing is ever fixed in tangible form.
To be an infringement the "derivative work" must be "based upon
the copyrighted work," and the definition in section 101 refers to
"a translation, musical arrangement, dramatization,
fictionalization, motion picture version, sound recording, art
reproduction, abridgment, condensation, or any other form in which
a work may be recast, transformed, or adapted." Thus, to constitute
a violation of section 106(2), the infringing work must incorporate
a portion of the copyrighted work in some form; for example, a
detailed commentary on a work or a programmatic musical composition
inspired by a novel would not normally constitute infringements
under this clause.
Use in Information Storage and Retrieval Systems. - As section
117 declares explicitly, the bill is not intended to alter the
present law with respect to the use of copyrighted works in
computer systems.
Public Distribution. - Clause (3) of section 106 establishes the
exclusive right of publication: The right "to distribute copies or
phonorecords of the copyrighted work to the public by sale or other
transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending." Under this
provision the copyright owner would have the right to control the
first public distribution of an authorized copy or phonorecord of
his work, whether by sale, gift, loan, or some rental or lease
arrangement. Likewise, any unauthorized public distribution of
copies or phonorecords that were unlawfully made would be an
infringement. As section 109 makes clear, however, the copyright
owner's rights under section 106(3) cease with respect to a
particular copy or phonorecord once he has parted with ownership of
it.
Rights of Public Performance and Display. Performing Rights and
the "For Profit" Limitation. - The right of public performance
under section 106(4) extends to "literary, musical, dramatic, and
choreographic works, pantomimes, and motion pictures and other
audiovisual works and sound recordings" and, unlike the equivalent
provisions now in effect, is not limited by any "for profit"
requirement. The approach of the bill, as in many foreign laws, is
first to state the public performance right in broad terms, and
then to provide specific exemptions for educational and other
nonprofit uses.
This approach is more reasonable than the outright exemption of
the 1909 statute. The line between commercial and "nonprofit"
organizations is increasingly difficult to draw. Many "non-profit"
organizations are highly subsidized and capable of paying
royalties, and the widespread public exploitation of copyrighted
works by public broadcasters and other noncommercial organizations
is likely to grow. In addition to these trends, it is worth noting
that performances and displays are continuing to supplant markets
for printed copies and that in the future a broad "not for profit"
exemption could not only hurt authors but could dry up their
incentive to write.
The exclusive right of public performance is expanded to include
not only motion pictures, including works recorded on film, video
tape, and video disks, but also audiovisual works such as
filmstrips and sets of slides. This provision of section 106(4),
which is consistent with the assimilation of motion pictures to
audiovisual works throughout the bill, is also related to
amendments of the definitions of "display" and "perform" discussed
below. The important issue of performing rights in sound recordings
is discussed in connection with section 114.
Right of Public Display. - Clause (5) of section 106 represents
the first explicit statutory recognition in American copyright law
of an exclusive right to show a copyrighted work, or an image of
it, to the public. The existence or extent of this right under the
present statute is uncertain and subject to challenge. The bill
would give the owners of copyright in "literary, musical, dramatic,
and choreographic works, pantomimes, and pictorial, graphic, or
sculptural works", including the individual images of a motion
picture or other audiovisual work, the exclusive right "to display
the copyrighted work publicly."
Definitions. Under the definitions of "perform," "display,"
"publicly," and "transmit" in section 101, the concepts of public
performance and public display cover not only the initial rendition
or showing, but also any further act by which that rendition or
showing is transmitted or communicated to the public. Thus, for
example: a singer is performing when he or she sings a song; a
broadcasting network is performing when it transmits his or her
performance (whether simultaneously or from records); a local
broadcaster is performing when it transmits the network broadcast;
a cable television system is performing when it retransmits the
broadcast to its subscribers; and any individual is performing
whenever he or she plays a phonorecord embodying the performance or
communicates the performance by turning on a receiving set.
Although any act by which the initial performance or display is
transmitted, repeated, or made to recur would itself be a
"performance" or "display" under the bill, it would not be
actionable as an infringement unless it were done "publicly," as
defined in section 101. Certain other performances and displays, in
addition to those that are "private," are exempted or given
qualified copyright control under sections 107 through 118.
To "perform" a work, under the definition in section 101,
includes reading a literary work aloud, singing or playing music,
dancing a ballet or other choreographic work, and acting out a
dramatic work or pantomime. A performance may be accomplished
"either directly or by means of any device or process," including
all kinds of equipment for reproducing or amplifying sounds or
visual images, any sort of transmitting apparatus, any type of
electronic retrieval system, and any other techniques and systems
not yet in use or even invented.
The definition of "p
Online Attorney
Read this important disclaimer
If you experience unusual problems with this site please email the webmaster.
Copyright: David Matheny, 2006-2008.
|
|