U.S. Copyright Office records also provide a glimpse into the evolution of U.S. registration practices and related rights. Examples of some important historic registrations include:
- First federal registration of a work: John Barry’s book, The Philadelphia Spelling Book, registered with the U.S. District Court for the District of Pennsylvania in 1790.
- Registration of the Statue of Liberty: On August 31, 1876, Henry de Stuckle and Auguste F. Bartholdi secured registration number 9939-G for the “Statue of American Independence,” as the Statue of Liberty was first named. The copyright claim was filed in America’s centennial year, a decade before the statue was erected in New York Harbor.
- First motion picture registrations: The Edison Kinetoscopic Record of a Sneeze, January 7, 1894, submitted on January 9, 1894, is the earliest extant copyrighted motion picture in the Library of Congress’s collections. The short clip, known in film circles as Fred Ott’s Sneeze, shows a mustachioed man sneezing. The motion picture was registered as a series of photographs because motion pictures were not covered by U.S. copyright law until 1912. The first work registered as a motion picture was the Republic Film Company’s September 12, 1912 registration for Black Sheep’s Wool.
- First television show registration: “Unexpected Guest” by Hopalong Cassidy, registered in 1947.
- First computer program registration: John F. Banzhaf’s computer program to compute automobile distances, registered in 1964.
- First sound recording registration: Bob and Dorothy Roberts’s “Color Photo Processing Cassette, An Accurate Sound Signal and Oral Instruction System for Processing,” registered on February 15, 1972.
101.2 Organization of the U.S. Copyright Office
The Register of Copyrights is the Director of the U.S. Copyright Office and a recognized leader and lawyer within the U.S. government. By statute, the Register works under the general direction of the Librarian of Congress and carries out a variety of legal and policy functions that are enumerated throughout Title 17. The U.S. Copyright Office has seven main divisions, in addition to the Register’s Office, and several hundred staff. There are four Associate Registers of Copyrights and three additional division heads that report directly to the Register and help to carry out her statutory mandate. An organizational chart is available at www.copyright.gov/docs/c-711.pdf.
101.2(A) Office of the Register
The Office of the Register of Copyrights has overall responsibility for the U.S. Copyright Office and its statutory mandate, specifically: for legal interpretation of the copyright law; administering the provisions of Title 17; promulgating copyright regulations; advising Congress and other government officials on domestic and international copyright policy and other intellectual property issues; determining personnel and
