Compendium of U.S. Copyright Office Practices, Third Edition
- February 19, 1897: The U.S. Copyright Office is established as a separate department of the Library of Congress. Position of Register of Copyrights created.
- July 1, 1909: Effective date of third general revision of the copyright law. Certain classes of unpublished works now eligible for registration. Term of statutory protection for a work copyrighted in published form measured from the date of publication of the work. Renewal term extended from fourteen to twenty-eight years.
- August 24, 1912: Motion pictures, previously allowed to be registered only as a series of still photographs, added as a class of protected works.
- July 13, 1914: President Woodrow Wilson proclaims U.S. adherence to the Buenos Aires Copyright Convention of 1910, which established copyright protection between the United States and certain Latin American nations.
- July 1, 1940: Effective date of transfer of jurisdiction for the registration of commercial prints and labels from the U.S. Patent Office to the U.S. Copyright Office.
- July 30, 1947: The copyright law codified as Title 17 of the U.S. Code.
- January 1, 1953: Recording and performing rights extended to nondramatic literary works.
- September 16, 1955: United States becomes party to the 1952 Universal Copyright Convention as revised in Geneva, Switzerland.
- September 19, 1962: First of nine special acts extending terms of subsisting renewal copyrights pending congressional action on general copyright law revision.
- February 15, 1972: Effective date of the act extending limited copyright protection to sound recordings fixed and first published on or after this date.
- March 10, 1974: United States becomes a member of the Convention for the Protection of Producers of Phonograms Against Unauthorized Duplication of Their Phonograms.
- July 10, 1974: United States becomes party to the 1971 revision of the Universal Copyright Convention as revised at Paris, France.
- October 19, 1976: Fourth general revision of the copyright law signed by President Gerald Ford. This extensive revision included numerous provisions that modernized copyright law, as described in Section 102.2(A) above.
- January 1, 1978: Effective date of principal provisions of the 1976 copyright law.
- December 12, 1980: Copyright law amended to address computer programs.
Chapter 100 : 18
12/22/2014
