on a variety of subjects on the basis that the work is a composite work. By contrast, a proprietor may not claim the renewal copyright in a work such as a dictionary in which the contributions are interspersed, or in a collection of short stories or poems by only a few authors on the basis that the work is a composite work.
NOTE: While a renewal claim in the name of the proprietor of a composite work may be made in the work as a whole, it is unclear whether the proprietor's right to the renewal copyright extends to all parts that are not separately renewed. For works subject to the manufacturing clause, a renewal registration on this basis does not extend to any contribution or separate, distinct work or element of authorship that did not secure the full original term of copyright.
NOTE: Composite works and published collections do not include joint works or other unitary works which have overarching elements (such as a novel) or a common design consisting of component elements that are integral to the work as a whole (such as a motion picture).
2127 Contributions to Periodicals, Published Collections, and Other Larger Works
The Copyright Act of 1909 provided for original registration of contributions by individual authors to periodicals, and renewal registration of contributions to periodicals, encyclopedic, or other composite works. Copyright Act of 1909, Pub. L. No. 60-349, §§ 12, 23, 35 Stat. 1075, 1078, 1080 (1909). The U.S. Copyright Office has expanded the scope of this provision with regard to renewal registration to include:
• Contributions by individual authors to published collections;
• Separate works and elements of authorship first published in other types of larger works; and
• Contributions that were created as works made for hire.
When a contribution or separate work or element of authorship was first published with its own separate copyright notice, it must be registered separately for the renewal term, even when it was registered for the original term together with the collection or as part of the larger work. For information regarding uncorrected original registration records, see Section 2130.
NOTE: Separate registration for a contribution to a joint or other unitary work is not possible, even when the contribution is separable from the work as a whole, unless the contribution was registered separately for the original term, or the unitary work as first published bore a separate copyright notice for the contribution. If the contributor is an author of the unitary work, a renewal claim may be registered in the unitary work as a whole, but not in that author's contribution, separate from the work as a whole.
2128 Group Renewal Registration
The current law provides for a single renewal registration of a group of works by the same individual author that were first published as contributions to periodicals within
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