Copyright Act of 1909. Start here for information about foreign works that are not eligible for renewal registration but may be eligible for registration under the URAA.
• Part VIII contains a glossary of terms. Start here to find an explanation of terms related to renewal registration.
NOTE: The definitions provided in the glossary only apply to this Chapter.
PART I GENERAL BACKGROUND
2102 Copyright Renewal
The Copyright Act of 1909 provided for two consecutive terms of copyright: an original term lasting for twenty-eight years from the date copyright was secured, followed by a renewal term of twenty-eight years. An Act to Amend and Consolidate the Acts Respecting Copyright, Pub. L. No. 60-349, §§ 23-24, 35 Stat. 1075, 1080 [1909] ["Copyright Act of 1909"].
The original term began on the date of publication or registration [if registered as an unpublished work] and ended on the twenty-ninth anniversary date of publication or registration as an unpublished work. The renewal term began on the day following the twenty-ninth anniversary date and was to end on the fifty-seventh anniversary date of publication or registration as an unpublished work. However, as the earliest works that secured copyright under the Copyright Act of 1909 came to the end of their renewal terms, Congress enacted a series of extension acts to ensure the renewal terms would not expire before the current law took effect on January 1, 1978. These interim extension acts affected works still in their renewal terms whose copyright protection began between September 19, 1906 and December 31, 1918. Without these interim extensions, copyrights commencing during those years would have expired after fifty- six years. See Circular 92, Copyright Law of the United States of America and Related Laws Contained in Title 17 of the United States Code, ch.3, n.7. The final extension came with the Transitional and Supplementary Provisions of the Copyright Act of 1976. Pub. L. No. 94-553, app. A, tit. I, § 102, 90 Stat. 2541 [1976].
To extend copyright into the renewal term, two registrations had to be made before the original term expired, one for the original term and the other for the renewal term. Registration for the original term could be made at any time during the original term;
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