Library Guides: Intellectual Property Research: Copyright Statutes

U.S. Copyright Office

Copyright Basics (Circular 1)
- Copyright is a form of protection provided by the laws of the United States to the authors of “original works of authorship”
  that are fixed in a tangible form of expression. An original work of authorship is a work that is independently created by
  a human author and possesses at least some minimal degree of creativity. A work is “fixed” when it is captured (either
  by or under the authority of an author) in a sufficiently permanent medium such that the work can be perceived, reproduced, or communicated for more than a short time. Copyright protection in the United States exists automatically from the moment the original work of authorship is fixed.
All Copyright Circulars
- Circulars are published by the Copyright Office to provide up-to-date and authoritative information to a general audience.
- How to Investigate the Copyright Status of a Work
Copyright Office Website
Copyright Public Records System
Fair Use Index
- Provided by the U.S. Copyright Office to collect case law on the fair use doctrine. The goal of the Index is to make the principles and application of fair use more accessible and understandable to the public by presenting a searchable database of court opinions, including by category and type of use (e.g., music, internet/digitization, parody).
Legislative Developments
- Tracks pending and enacted copyright legislation
Public Catalog
- Database of works registered and copyright documents recorded with the U.S. Copyright Office since January 1, 1978.
- Guide to Searching the Copyright Office Catalog
Stanford University Libraries: Searching the Copyright Office and Library of Congress Records
- Guide on how to search copyright records of the Copyright Office and Library of Congress.

STATUTES

U.S. Copyright law is found in Title 17 of the United States Code, which is one of the titles that has been enacted into positive law by Congress - meaning that Title 17 is legal evidence of the law in all U.S. courts.

The United States Code can be found online at the website of its publisher, the Office of the Law Revision Counsel of the United States House of Representatives

Title 17--Copyrights

The U.S. Code is also available online at GovInfo.

Annotated versions of the United States Code are published by West (United States Code Annotated or U.S.C.A.) and Lexis (United States Code Service or U.S.C.S.) and are available online in both services. HeinOnline offers full historic coverage of the print edition of the U.S. Code, which can be useful when faced with an issue based on a previous copyright law.

Selected Legislation

Copyright Act of 1976

Copyright Act of 1976, Pub.L. 94–553, 90 Stat. 2541
- Omnibus Copyright Revision Legislative History by George S. Grossman
  - Extensive, 17-volume legislative history of the Copyright Act of 1976, with materials dating back to the 1950s. Available on HeinOnline.
- Kaminstein Legislative History Project: A Compendium and Analytical Index of Materials Leading to the Copyright Act of 1976
  - Six volume, section-by-section index of the legislative history of the Copyright Act of 1976. Available in print and on HeinOnline.

Copyright Amendments Act of 1992

Copyright Amendments Act of 1992
- Legislative history compiled by the firm Arnold & Porter. Available on HeinOnline.

Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA)

Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)

Family Entertainment and Copyright Act

Orrin G. Hatch-Bob Goodlatte Music Modernization Act

Copyright Alternative in Small–Claims Enforcement Act of 2020 (CASE Act of 2020)