Cite as: 523 U. S. 340 (1998)
Opinion of the Court
(Conn. Super. Ct. 1789) ( jury awarded copyright owner £100 under Connecticut copyright statute).
Moreover, three of the state statutes specifically authorized an award of damages from a statutory range, just as § 504(c) does today. See Copyright Enactments 4 (in Massachusetts, damages of not less than £5 and not more than £3,000); id., at 8 (in New Hampshire, damages of not less than £5 and not more than £1,000); id., at 9 (in Rhode Island, damages of not less than £5 and not more than £3,000). Although we have found no direct evidence of the practice under these statutes, there is no reason to suppose that such actions were intended to deviate from the traditional practice: The damages were to be recovered by an "action of debt," see id., at 4-9, which was an action at law, see Mait-land 357.
In 1790, Congress passed the first federal copyright statute, the Copyright Act of 1790, which similarly authorized the awarding of damages for copyright infringements. Act of May 31, 1790, ch. 15, §§ 2, 6, 1 Stat. 124, 125. The Copyright Act of 1790 provided that damages for copyright infringement of published works would be "the sum of fifty cents for every sheet which shall be found in [the infringer's] possession, . . . to be recovered by action of debt in any court of record in the United States, wherein the same is cognizable." § 2. Like the Statute of Anne, the Copyright Act of 1790 provided that half ("one moiety") of such damages were to go to the copyright owner and half to the United States. For infringement of an unpublished manuscript, the statute entitled a copyright owner to "all damages occasioned by such injury, to be recovered by a special action on the case founded upon this act, in any court having cognizance thereof." § 6.
There is no evidence that the Copyright Act of 1790 changed the practice of trying copyright actions for damages in courts of law before juries. As we have noted, actions on the case and actions of debt were actions at law for which a
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