Copyrights - 17 USC Section 303

01/19/04

Sec. 303. Duration of copyright: Works created but not published or
copyrighted before January 1, 1978

(a) Copyright in a work created before January 1, 1978, but not
theretofore in the public domain or copyrighted, subsists from
January 1, 1978, and endures for the term provided by section 302.
In no case, however, shall the term of copyright in such a work
expire before December 31, 2002; and, if the work is published on
or before December 31, 2002, the term of copyright shall not expire
before December 31, 2047.
(b) The distribution before January 1, 1978, of a phonorecord
shall not for any purpose constitute a publication of the musical
work embodied therein.

HISTORICAL AND REVISION NOTES
HOUSE REPORT NO. 94-1476
Theoretically, at least, the legal impact of section 303 would be
far reaching. Under it, every "original work of authorship" fixed
in tangible form that is in existence would be given statutory
copyright protection as long as the work is not in the public
domain in this country. The vast majority of these works consist of
private material that no one is interested in protecting or
infringing, but section 303 would still have practical effects for
a prodigious body of material already in existence.
Looked at another way, however, section 303 would have a
genuinely restrictive effect. Its basic purpose is to substitute
statutory for common law copyright for everything now protected at
common law, and to substitute reasonable time limits for the
perpetual protection now available. In general, the substituted
time limits are those applicable to works created after the
effective date of the law [Jan. 1, 1978]; for example, an
unpublished work written in 1945 whose author dies in 1980 would be
protected under the statute from the effective date [Jan. 1, 1978]
through 2030 (50 years after the author's death).
A special problem under this provision is what to do with works
whose ordinary statutory terms will have expired or will be nearing
expiration on the effective date [Jan. 1, 1978]. The committee
believes that a provision taking away subsisting common law rights
and substituting statutory rights for a reasonable period is fully
in harmony with the constitutional requirements of due process, but
it is necessary to fix a "reasonable period" for this purpose.
Section 303 provides that under no circumstances would copyright
protection expire before December 31, 2002, and also attempts to
encourage publication by providing 25 years more protection
(through 2027) if the work were published before the end of 2002.
AMENDMENTS
1998 - Subsec. (a). Pub. L. 105-298 substituted "December 31,
2047" for "December 31, 2027" in second sentence.
1997 - Pub. L. 105-80 designated existing provisions as subsec.
(a) and added subsec. (b).

Last modified: April 19, 2006