Opinion ID: 771186
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Changes Made by the AWCPA

Text: 70 The AWCPA only applies to buildings constructed on or after the statute's enactment date, December 1, 1990. See Pub. L. No. 101-650, S 706, 104 Stat. 5134. The AWCPA created a new category of copyrightable subject matter:architectural works, 17 U.S.C. S 102(a)(8), which Congress defined to include a building as constructed, see id.S 101. In creating this new category, Congress also created a new regime for determining when an architectural work is copyrightable. Architects can now copyright buildings as constructed without regard to whether the buildings satisfy the separability test applicable to PGS works embodied in useful articles. See H.R. REP. NO. 101-735, at 20. 6 Concerned, however, that architects might use this newly granted right to copyright buildings to the detriment of the public, Congress placed an important limitation on the exclusive rights that a copyright bestowed on the author of the architectural work: The copyright in an architectural work that has been constructed does not include the right to prevent the making, distributing, or public display of pictures, paintings, photographs, or other pictorial representations of the work, if the building in which the work is embodied is located in or ordinarily visible from a public place. 17 U.S.C. S 120(a); see also H.R. REP. NO. 101-735, at 22 (noting that the exception serve[s] to balance the interests of authors [of architectural works] and the public). In other words, if you want to copyright a building as constructed and thereby prevent others from constructing buildings that copy your design, you have to permit people to take, display and distribute pictures of your building without limitation. The driving purpose of the AWCPA, thus, was not to expand the public's right to photograph buildings, but to protect the works of architects; the limitation on photography was an important but secondary purpose, concerned with confining the scope of this new right. 71