Opinion ID: 759273
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Language of the 1909 Statute.

Text: 21 The district court held that § 7 applies only to statutory copyrights: 22 The 1909 Act was very precise when it addressed common law rights, which the statute explicitly states are not to be limited or annulled. See, e.g., 17 U.S.C. § 2 (repealed effective 1978) (referring to the right[s] of the author or proprietor of an unpublished work). Therefore, section 7 and the [Abend ] opinion must be read to refer only to a subsisting statutory copyright.... Had Congress wanted section 7 to apply to common law rights, it would have stated that section 7 applied to common law rights. 23 Maljack Prods., Inc. v. UAV Corp., 964 F.Supp. at 1423-24. 24 Batjac contends that the term copyright includes both statutory and common law copyrights. 7 The district court held that the term copyright was limited to statutory copyright by finding that common law protections were  'referred to somewhat inaccurately' as common law copyright. 1 Nimmer § 2.02 at 2-18. 8 We do not find this analysis persuasive. 25 To determine the intended meaning of the term copyright, Batjac suggests that we look to how the term copyright was commonly understood within the legal lexicon circa 1909. Alternatively, GoodTimes and the Register suggest that we look to the use of the term copyright in the 1909 Act, itself, and assign the identical meaning to the term throughout. 26 Batjac claims that the common meaning of the term copyright circa 1909 included both statutory and common law copyright. GoodTimes disputes this arguing that [i]t is perfectly well settled that the protection given to copyrights in this country is wholly statutory. White-Smith Music Publ'g Co. v. Apollo Co., 209 U.S. 1, 15, 28 S.Ct. 319, 52 L.Ed. 655 (1908). In reviewing the numerous sources cited by the parties, we agree with Batjac that the term copyright included both statutory and common law protection in the lexicon of both courts and treatise writers circa 1909. See, e.g., Bobbs-Merrill Co. v. Straus, 147 F. 15, 18 (1906) (using the term common law copyright but noting that there is a fundamental distinction between common-law right of literary property, commonly called common-law copyright, and copyright under the statute), aff'd, 210 U.S. 339, 28 S.Ct. 722, 52 L.Ed. 1086 (1908). However, there was also a recognition of the differences between statutory and common law protection. See, e.g., Caliga v. Inter Ocean Newspaper Co., 215 U.S. 182, 188, 30 S.Ct. 38, 54 L.Ed. 150 (1909) (holding that [s]tatutory copyright is not to be confounded with the common law right). So while Congress could have used the term copyright to refer to common law copyright in § 7, it need not have done so. Indeed, Congress' awareness of the two systems of copyright protection, as evidenced by its inclusion of § 2, 9 supports our finding that Congress chose not to refer to common law protections as common law copyrights under the 1909 Act. 27 Looking to the language of the 1909 Act, we recognize that it is a basic canon of statutory construction that identical terms within an Act bear the same meaning. Estate of Cowart v. Nicklos Drilling Co., 505 U.S. 469, 479, 112 S.Ct. 2589, 120 L.Ed.2d 379 (1992) (citations omitted). As a starting point, the Register points to numerous uses of the term copyright within the 1909 Act that can only refer to statutory copyright, see, e.g., §§ 1, 3, 6, 8, 10, 12 & 13, and to uses of the term subsisting copyright that can only mean statutory copyright, see, e.g., §§ 3, 19 & 25. 28 Batjac responds that these referenced provisions all employed limiting language, see, e.g., §§ 1, 3, 4, 5, 9, 10, 24, 28, 101, 104, 207, or otherwise made the limitation patently obvious from the context, see, e.g., §§ 6, 13, 19, 25. Batjac goes on to argue that the use of such limiting language cuts against the Register's and GoodTimes' interpretation of § 7 because in § 7 the only qualified use of the term copyright refers to new works. Batjac's analysis of the cited sections' use of limiting language or obvious context to modify the term copyright is a plausible interpretation of the 1909 Act. However, under this reading, the term copyright would refer to common law copyright essentially only under § 7-a rather convenient but dubious interpretation. 29 The only section where the 1909 Act explicitly refers to rights under common law is § 2. However, § 2 does not use the term copyright to describe the common law rights in intellectual property. The absence of the term copyright in § 2 suggests that Congress intended to limit the use of the term copyright under the 1909 Act to statutory copyright. 30 While § 2 is the primary place in the 1909 Act specifically referencing common law protection without calling it copyright protection, more subtle examples exist in § 10 and § 12. Throughout § 10 and § 12, the 1909 Act provides for securing copyright protection through publishing with notice, § 10, and securing a copyright by depositing with the Copyright Office, § 12. However, neither section references the already existing common law copyright protection being divested. So under Batjac's reading of the statute, we have to imply statutory before copyright within these provisions to distinguish the copyright being secured from the common law copyright being divested. The omission of any reference to the divested common law copyright within these sections cuts against Batjac's claim that copyright includes common law copyrights. 31 Similarly, the last part of § 7 states that what it calls a new work (a derivative work in our parlance) shall not be construed to secure or extend copyright in such original works. The Register argues that since common law copyright is perpetual and arises upon creation, this language, secure and extend, can only refer to statutory copyright. If the last reference to copyright in § 7 means statutory copyright, the basic rule of applying identical meanings to the same terms leads us to find that earlier references in the provision also mean statutory copyright. 32 Overall, we agree with GoodTimes and the Register that Congress used the term copyright to refer to statutory copyright in the 1909 Act. We do not stop here because enough doubt exists that we could be persuaded otherwise by contrary legislative history or agency action or interpretation. 33