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Part 2.4 WORKS PREPARED FOR ORAL DELIVERY (CLASS C)

2.4.1

What is a "Work Prepared for Oral Delivery"?

I.

Statutory provisions. Class C comprises "lectures, sermons, addresses (prepared for oral delivery)." (17 U.S.C. §5(c).) The statute also refers to "a lecture, sermon, address or similar production" (17 U.S.C. §1 (c)), which presumably covers the same class of works.

II.

Definition. A "work prepared for oral delivery" is an unpublished, nondramatic textual work written in the first instance for oral delivery before an audience, or on sound recordings, motion picture sound tracks, etc. It is to be distinguished from a work which, though capable of oral delivery, was written in the first instance for publication and individual reading.

III.

Examples:

a.

The manuscript of a classroom lecture, of an evangelist's sermon, of an after-dinner speech, or of a debate

b.

The script of a non-dramatic radio or tele­vision broadcast or audition

c.

The script of a motion picture sound track

d.

The text of an entertainer's monolog

e.

The text of a talk to accompany the showing of a filmstrip

f.

The story to be delivered by a narrator in conjunction with a pageant

g.

The text of a children's story, or of Spanish lessons, to be recorded on phonograph records

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[1973]