§ 303. — Duration of copyright: Works created but not published or copyrighted before January 1, 1978.
[Laws in effect as of January 24, 2002]
[Document not affected by Public Laws enacted between
January 24, 2002 and December 19, 2002]
[CITE: 17USC303]
TITLE 17--COPYRIGHTS
CHAPTER 3--DURATION OF COPYRIGHT
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.
(Pub. L. 94-553, title I, Sec. 101, Oct. 19, 1976, 90 Stat. 2573; Pub.
L. 105-80, Sec. 11, Nov. 13, 1997, 111 Stat. 1534; Pub. L. 105-298,
title I, Sec. 102(c), Oct. 27, 1998, 112 Stat. 2827.)
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example, an unpublished work written in 1945 whose author dies in 1980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).
Section Referred to in Other Sections
This section is referred to in sections 301, 305 of this title.
