A TIMELINE OF COPYRIGHT LAW IN THE UNITED STATES
1451
Gutenberg prints Bible using movable type.
1662
The Licensing Act formally established the monopoly of the Honorable Company of Stationers over printing and established a register of licensed books in England and its colonies.
1695
The English Licensing Act lapsed.
1710
The British Parliament enacted the Statute of Anne. The act established the principles of authors' ownership of copyright for fixed term and prevented a monopoly on the part of the booksellers by creating a "public domain" for literature.
1787
According to Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the U.S. Constitution, "the Congress shall have power . . . to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries."
1790
The First Congress implemented the copyright provision of the U.S. Constitution in an "Act for the Encouragement of Learning, by Securing the Copies of Maps, Charts, and Books to the Authors and Proprietors of Such Copies" which was modeled on the Statute of Anne and granted American authors the right to print, re-print, or publish their work for a period of fourteen years and to renew for another fourteen.
1831
The term of protection of copyrighted works was extended to twenty-eight years with the possibility of a fourteen-year extension. The extension applied both to future works and those current works whose copyright had not expired.
1870
The administration of copyright registrations was moved from the individual district courts to the Library of Congress Copyright Office.
1877
Edison patents the phonograph.
1886
The Berne Copyright Convention developed international norms for copyright protection which provided the basis for mutual recognition of copyright between European nations. The treaty has been revised five times since 1886.
1891
The International Copyright Treaty gave foreign authors the same protection as American authors in the United States.
1909
Copyright law was broadened to include musical and visual works of authorship, and extended the term of protection to twenty-eight years with a possible renewal of twenty-eight. "The main object to be desired in expanding copyright protection accorded to music has been to give the composer an adequate return for the value of his composition, and it has been a serious and difficult task to combine the protection of the composer with the protection of the public, and to so frame an act that it would accomplish the double purpose of securing to the composer an adequate return for all use made of his composition and at the same time prevent the formation of oppressive monopolies, which might be founded upon the very rights granted to the composer for the purpose of protecting his interests"
1976
The 1976 act preempted all previous copyright law and extended the term of protection to life of the author plus 50 years. For the first time the fair use and first sale doctrines were codified, and copyright was extended to unpublished works. It states that "the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright."
1988
The United States became a Berne signatory in 1988 resulting in major changes for the U.S. copyright system such as greater protection for proprietors, new copyright relationships with twenty-four countries, and elimination of the requirement of copyright notice for copyright protection.
1989
Berners-Lee creates the World Wide Web using hyper-text protocol to make the Internet ‘user friendly’.
1990
Congress amended the Copyright Act to prohibit commercial lending of computer software. The amendment noted that libraries could lend software provided the "copy of a computer program which is lent by such library has affixed to the packaging containing the program a warning of copyright." The amendment was a modification of the first sale doctrine.
1992
Congress amended the Copyright Act, making copyright renewal automatic. The amendment dramatically curtailed the entry into the public domain of works protected by copyright before 1978.
1994
President Clinton signed the Uruguay Round Agreements Act (URAA) which implemented the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) including Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPs). Provisions in the URAA amended U.S. copyright law. On January 1, 1996, copyright for works from eligible countries was restored.
1995
The National Information Infrastructure Working Group released a White Paper that contained recommendations to amend the Copyright Act of 1976 and presented a lengthy legal analysis of current copyright law which were introduced in Congress as the NII Copyright Protection Act.
1996
Delegates from 160 World Intellectual Property Organization (W.I.P.O.) member countries adopted a statement ensuring the "application of fair use in the digital environment." The treaty language emphasized "the need to maintain a balance between the rights of authors and the larger public interest, particularly education, research and access to information."
1998
The House and Senate passed S. 505, the "Sonny Bono" Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA) which extended protection from life of the author plus fifty years to life of the author plus seventy years. An exception permits libraries, archives, and non-profit educational institutions to treat copyrighted works in their last twenty years of protection as if they were in the public domain for non-commercial purposes, under certain limited conditions.
President Clinton signed the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) into law. Among the law's five titles was a provisions (Section 1201) which prohibits gaining unauthorized access to a work by circumventing a technological protection measure. Another provision establishing database protection was omitted by a House-Senate Conference.
1999
The National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws (NCCUSL) passed the Uniform Computer Information Transaction Act (UCITA, formerly UCC 2B). UCITA is a proposed state law that seeks to create a unified approach to the licensing of software and information and replaces the public law of copyright with the private law of contracts. It has been passed by only two states.
Congress approved a significant hike in the minimum statutory damages for various types of copyright infringement in the Digital Theft Deterrence and Copyright Damages Improvement Act. The law increased the minimum statutory damages for infringements from $500 to $750 and increased the maximum from $20,000 to $30,000. The maximum for willful infringement increased from $100,000 to $150,000.
2000
Congress directed the Register of Copyrights to review The Anti-Circumvention Provision of the DMCA, Section 1201and to issue recommendations to the Librarian of Congress on "classes of works" that should be exempt from the ban on circumvention. The Librarian of Congress then announced the exemption of two narrow classes of works: compilations of lists of Web sites blocked by filtering software applications; and literary works, including computer programs and databases, protected by access control mechanisms that fail to permit access because of malfunction, damage, or obsolescence. In issuing the rulemaking, the Librarian of Congress noted the "potential damage to scholarship" and possible harm to "American creativity" resulting from provisions in the statute.