Source: https://www.americanbar.org/groups/intellectual_property_law/publications/landslide/2018-19/march-april/on-road-modern-copyright-system/
Timestamp: 2019-04-21 12:52:30+00:00

Document:
Published in Landslide Vol. 11 No. 4, ©2019 by the American Bar Association. Reproduced with permission. All rights reserved. This information or any portion thereof may not be copied or disseminated in any form or by any means or stored in an electronic database or retrieval system without the express written consent of the American Bar Association.
The roar of support for modernizing the Copyright Office is deafening.1 Yet, despite those cheers, stakeholders debate the placement of the Office and the role of its head, the Register of Copyrights, in the copyright system. This article presents a narrative of the evolution of the copyright system from 1783 to the early days of the Copyright Office, considering along the way themes such as the requirements for registration, the use of the copyright system to build a national library, and the role of the Register in copyright policy. It also addresses whether the Copyright Office is required to be a department of the Library of Congress and whether the Register of Copyrights can be a primary exponent of copyright policy.
Two brothers working in the Patent Office, William and Seth Elliot, “compiled and published as a private venture an annual list of patents, to which was appended in the years 1822–25 ‘A List of All the Books That Have Been Deposited in the Department of State, for Securing Their Copy Right According to Law.’”11 Due to a lack of support, the project eventually was abandoned, and one of the brothers would later charge “that Congress reprinted the patent list without compensation.”12 Nevertheless, their contribution would later become the model for the Copyright Office’s recording system.
Although delivery of these copies did not affect whether a work was protected by copyright law, it built a bridge between these national libraries and federal copyright law. This was not a new innovation. Requirements to deposit books and other cultural materials in libraries existed at least as early as 1537 in France,22 and 1662 in England.23 As foreign copyright laws developed, sometimes copyright deposits were used to enrich national libraries.24 Even in the United States, Massachusetts’s state copyright act required copyright owners to provide the “library of the university at Cambridge,” which would become Harvard University, “two printed copies” of their literary works.25 The 1846 Act, however, was remarkable because it was the first time that the United States copyright system distinguished between registration deposits (for copyright purposes) and legal deposits (for library purposes).
Today, the Copyright Office is central to the copyright system. In 1996, Congress clarified that the Register has an equivalent position to that held by the head of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.89 It also made clear that the Register’s responsibilities include advising Congress and federal departments, participating in international meetings, and conducting copyright studies.90 Moreover, the Copyright Office has been given new responsibilities as Congress has protected new categories of works (see fig. 5).
Thus, the question remains how to further modernize the Copyright Office.92 One idea that has received growing attention is making the Register a presidential appointee, which would allow him or her to promulgate rules directly instead of going through the Librarian.93 Some support this as a natural evolution of the copyright system.94 Others do not, raising concerns that the Office will be politicized.95 In the end, one thing is clear: the copyright system will continue to develop in the years to come.
1. Joshua L. Simmons, The Next Great Copyright Office, 7 Landslide, no. 6, July/Aug. 2015, at 22.
2. 1 William F. Patry, Patry on Copyright § 1:17 (2016); see also Andrew Law’s Privilege (1781), Primary Sources on Copyright (1450–1900), http://www.copyrighthistory.org/cam/tools/request/showRecord?id=record_us_1781a (last visited Feb. 14, 2019).
3. Eaton S. Drone, A Treatise on the Law of Property in Intellectual Productions in Great Britain and the United States 87 (1879).
4. Act for the Encouragement of Literature and Genius, 1784 Conn. Acts & Laws 133 (1783), http://www.copyrighthistory.org/cam/tools/request/showRecord?id=record_us_1783a.
5. Act of May 21, 1790, § 3, 1 Stat. 124 [hereinafter Copyright Act of 1790].
7. Staff of S. Comm. on the Judiciary, 86th Cong., Copyright Law Revision: Study No. 21, at 55 (Comm. Print 1960) (authored by Elizabeth K. Dunne & Joseph W. Rogers) [hereinafter Dunne & Rogers].
8. Copyright Act of 1790, § 4.
9. Staff of S. Comm. on the Judiciary, 86th Cong., Copyright Law Revision: Study No. 20, at 11 (Comm. Print 1960) (authored by Elizabeth K. Dunne) [hereinafter Dunne]; see also Wheaton v. Peters, 33 U.S. 591, 665 (1834).
10. Dunne & Rogers, supra note 7, at 55.
11. Id. at 56 (footnote omitted).
12. Id. at 56 n.8.
13. Dunne, supra note 9, at 12.
14. Act of Feb. 3, 1831, 4 Stat. 436.
15. Act of June 30, 1834, 4 Stat. 728.
17. Act of Apr. 24, 1800, 2 Stat. 56.
19. John Y. Cole, Of Copyright, Men & a National Library, 28 Q.J. Libr. Congress 114 (1971).
20. Founding of the Smithsonian Institution, Smithsonian (Jan. 1, 2018), https://www.si.edu/newsdesk/factsheets/founding-smithsonian-institution.
21. Act of Aug. 10, 1846, 9 Stat. 102.
22. Dunne, supra note 9, at 1.
23. Licensing Act 1662, 13 & 14 Car. II c. 38 (Eng.).
24. Dunne, supra note 9, at 1–2.
25. Act of Mar. 17, 1783, 1789 Mass. Laws 369, http://www.copyrighthistory.org/cam/tools/request/showRecord?id=record_us_1783d.
26. Dunne, supra note 9, at 12.
27. Act of Mar. 3, 1855, 10 Stat. 685.
28. Act of Feb. 5, 1859, 11 Stat. 379, 380.
29. Dunne, supra note 9, at 13.
30. Cole, supra note 19, at 118.
31. Act of Feb. 5, 1859, 11 Stat. 379, 380.
32. Act of Mar. 3, 1849, 9 Stat. 395.
33. Cole, supra note 19, at 121.
37. Act of Mar. 3, 1865, 16 Stat. 198.
38. David C. Mearns, The Story Up to Now, in Annual Report of the Librarian of Congress for the Fiscal Year Ending June 30, 1946, at 13, 102 (1947).
39. Report of the Librarian of Congress for the Year Ending December 1, 1866, at 5 (1866).
40. Act of Feb. 18, 1867, 14 Stat. 395.
41. Frank Evina, Copyright Lore, Copyright Notices (Dec. 2003), https://www.copyright.gov/history/lore/2003/dec03-lore.pdf.
42. Cole, supra note 19, at 126 (quoting Letter from Ainsworth Rand Spofford to Thomas Jenckes (Apr. 9, 1870)).
44. Act of July 8, 1870, 16 Stat. 210, 212–17 [hereinafter Copyright Act of 1870].
45. Mearns, supra note 38, at 108.
46. Copyright Act of 1870, supra note 44, §§ 85, 109.
48. Evina, supra note 41.
49. Copyright Act of 1870, supra note 44, §§ 90–91.
50. Cole, supra note 19, at 116.
51. Annual Report of the Librarian of Congress for the Year 1871, at 4 (1871).
52. Cole, supra note 19, at 129.
54. E. Fulton Brylawski, The Copyright Office: A Constitutional Confrontation, 44 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 1, 13–14 (1975).
56. Richard Rogers Bowker, Copyright: Its History and Its Law 298 (1912).
57. Brylawski, supra note 54, at 14.
58. Dunne, supra note 9, at 14.
59. Id.; see also Mearns, supra note 38, at 110.
60. Act of June 18, 1874, 18 Stat. 78; see also Walter J. Derenberg, Commercial Prints and Labels: A Hybrid in Copyright Law, 49 Yale L.J. 1212, 1212 (1940).
61. Pub. L. No. 76-244, 53 Stat. 1142 (1939).
62. Annual Report of the Librarian of Congress Exhibiting the Progress of the Library during the Year Ending December 1, 1870, at 4 (1871).
63. Annual Report of the Librarian of Congress for the Year 1875, at 10 (1876).
64. Annual Report of the Librarian of Congress for the Year 1877, at 4 (1878).
65. Act of Mar. 3, 1891, 26 Stat. 1106.
67. Annual Report of the Librarian of Congress Exhibiting the Progress of the Library during the Calendar Year 1891, at 4 (1892).
68. Cole, supra note 19, at 129.
71. Act of Feb. 19, 1897, 29 Stat. 538.
72. 1 Patry, supra note 2, § 1:41.
73. Cole, supra note 19, at 134.
75. 1 Patry, supra note 2, § 1:41.
76. Report of the Librarian of Congress for the Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 1899 app. III (1899).
77. Report of the Librarian of Congress for the Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 1898, S. Rep. No. 55-24, at 13 (1898).
78. Copyright Act of 1909, Pub. L. No. 60-349, § 56, 35 Stat. 1075.
79. Report of the Librarian of Congress for the Fiscal Year Ending June 30, 1900, at 40 (1900).
80. Terry Hart, The Future of the US Copyright Office, Copyhype (Feb. 26, 2015), http://www.copyhype.com/2015/02/the-future-of-the-us-copyright-office/.
81. Report of the Librarian of Congress for the Fiscal Year Ending June 30, 1901, at 60 (1901).
82. Staff of S. Comm. on the Judiciary, 86th Cong., Copyright Law Revision: Study No. 1, at 1 (Comm. Print 1955) (authored by Abe A. Goldman) [hereinafter Goldman].
83. Report of the Librarian of Congress and Report of the Superintendent of the Library Building and Grounds for the Fiscal Year Ending June 30, 1906, at 111 (1906) [hereinafter 1906 Report].
84. Goldman, supra note 82, at 1–2.
85. 1906 Report, supra note 83, at 113.
86. Goldman, supra note 82, at 3.
87. Frank Evina, Recording Assignments and Related Documents in the Copyright Office Began on July 25, 1870, Copyright Notices (Apr. 2004), https://www.copyright.gov/history/lore/2004/apr04-lore.pdf.
88. Maria A. Pallante, The Next Great Copyright Act, 36 Colum. J.L. & Arts 315 (2013).
89. Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), Pub. L. No. 105-304, § 401(a)(3), 112 Stat. 2860, 2887 (1998); 5 U.S.C. § 5314 (1998).
90. DMCA § 401(b)(2), 112 Stat. at 2888; 17 U.S.C. § 701.
91. Compare 17 U.S.C. § 408(b), with id. § 407(a).
92. Simmons, supra note 1, at 22.
93. H.R. 1695, 115th Cong. (2017).
94. Press Release, Copyright Alliance, Copyright Alliance Applauds Introduction of Register of Copyrights Selection and Accountability Act (H.R. 1695) and Urges Prompt Consideration (Mar. 23, 2017), https://copyrightalliance.org/news-events/press-releases/register-of-copyrights-accountability-act/.
95. Elliot Harmon, Don’t Make the Register of Copyrights into a Presidential Pawn, Electronic Frontier Found. (Sept. 25, 2018), https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/09/dont-turn-register-copyrights-presidential-pawn.
Joshua L. Simmons is an intellectual property partner at Kirkland & Ellis LLP in New York, New York. He focuses his practice on intellectual property litigation and counseling, as well as regulatory and legislative policy.

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