Archive-name: Copyright-FAQ/part1

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT COPYRIGHT (V. 1.1.1)
Part 1 - Introduction.


Copyright 1993 Terry Carroll
(c) 1993 Terry Carroll


This article is the first in a series of six articles that 
contains frequently asked questions (FAQ) with answers relating to 
copyright law, particularly that of the United States.  It is 
posted to the Usenet misc.legal, misc.legal.computing, and 
misc.int-property newsgroups monthly, on or near the 17th of each 
month.  The FAQ maintainer is currently investigating the 
requirements for posting the FAQ in the news.answers and related 
newsgroups.

This FAQ is available for anonymous FTP from rtfm.mit.edu 
[18.70.0.226], in directory /pub/usenet/news.answers/Copyright-
FAQ, files part1 - part6. If  you do not have direct access by 
FTP, you can obtain a copy via email: send a  message to mail-
server@rtfm.mit.edu with the following lines in it:

  send usenet/news.answers/Copyright-FAQ/part1
  send usenet/news.answers/Copyright-FAQ/part2
  send usenet/news.answers/Copyright-FAQ/part3
  send usenet/news.answers/Copyright-FAQ/part4
  send usenet/news.answers/Copyright-FAQ/part5
  send usenet/news.answers/Copyright-FAQ/part6
  quit

The most current copy of the FAQ, generally identical to the 
version on rtfm.mit.edu, is always available for anonymous ftp 
from charon.amdahl.com [129.212.33.1], in the directory 
/pub/misc.legal/Copyright-FAQ, filenames part.1 - part.6.


DISCLAIMER - PLEASE READ.

This article is Copyright 1993 by Terry Carroll.  It may be freely 
redistributed in its entirety provided that this copyright notice 
is not removed.  It may not be sold for profit or incorporated in 
commercial documents without the written permission of the 
copyright holder.  Permission is expressly granted for this 
document to be made available for file transfer from installations 
offering unrestricted anonymous file transfer on the Internet.  
Permission is further granted for this document to be made 
available for file transfer in the Legal Forum and Desktop 
Publishing Forum data libraries of Compuserve Information 
Services.  This article is provided as is without any express or 
implied warranty.  Nothing in this article represents the views of 
Amdahl Corporation, Santa Clara University, or the Santa Clara 
Computer and High Technology Law Journal.

While all information in this article is believed to be correct at 
the time of writing, this article is for educational purposes only 
and does not purport to provide legal advice.  If you require 
legal advice, you should consult with a legal practitioner 
licensed to practice in your jurisdiction.

Terry Carroll, the FAQ-maintainer, is a computer professional, and 
is currently (7/93) a student in his final year at Santa Clara 
University School of Law and Editor-in-Chief of the Santa Clara 
Computer and High Technology Law Journal.

If you have any additions, corrections, or suggestions for 
improvement to this FAQ, please send them to one of the following 
addresses, in order of preference:

  tjc50@juts.ccc.amdahl.com
  tcarroll@scuacc.scu.edu
  71550.133@compuserve.com

I will accept suggestions for questions to be added to the FAQ, 
but please be aware that I will be more receptive to questions 
that are accompanied by answers.  :-)


FAQ ORGANIZATION.

The following table indicates the contents of each of the parts of 
the FAQ.  For each part, the last version in which that part was 
substantially updated (excluding the reorganization into six parts 
done as part of V1.1.0) is indicated in parentheses.


  Part 1 (V1.1.1) - Introduction (including full table of
                    contents).
  Part 2 (V1.1.1) - Copyright basics.
  Part 3 (V1.0.0) - Common miscellaneous questions.
  Part 4 (V1.0.0) - International aspects.
  Part 5 (V1.0.2) - Further copyright resources.
  Part 6 (V1.0.0) - Appendix: A note about legal citation form,
                    or, "What's all this '17 U.S.C. 107' and '977
                    F.2d 1510' stuff?"

TABLE OF CONTENTS (for all parts).

Part 1 - Introduction.

Part 2 - Copyright Basics.

2.1) What is a copyright?
2.2) What is "public domain?"
2.3) I just wrote a great program/novel/song/whatever.  How can I
     get a copyright on it?
2.4) How long does a copyright last?  Does it need to be renewed?
2.5) What advantages are there to registering my work with the
     Copyright Office?
2.6) How can I register a copyright with the U.S. Copyright
     Office?
2.7) What advantages are there to including a copyright notice on
     my work?
2.8) Can I ever use a copyrighted work without permission of the 
     copyright holder, or "What is 'fair use?'"
2.9) Fair use - the legal basis of the doctrine.
2.10) [reserved.]

Part 3 - Common miscellaneous questions.

3.1) Who owns the copyright to something I wrote at work, me or my 
     company?
3.2) [reserved.]
3.3) Is copyright infringement a crime, or a civil matter?
3.4) What is the statute of limitation for copyright infringement?
3.5) Can the government be sued for copyright infringement?
3.6) Can the government copyright its works?
3.7) Can I legally make a cassette copy of a musical CD for my own
     use, so I can play it in my car?
3.8) Are Usenet postings and email messages copyrighted?
3.9) Are fonts copyrighted?
3.10) What does "All Rights Reserved" mean?
3.11) What's the difference between a copyright and a patent?
3.12) Why is there so little in this FAQ about patents?
3.13 - 3.18) [reserved.]

Part 4 - International aspects.

4.1) What international treaties exist governing copyright, or
     "What is this Berne Convention I keep hearing about?"
4.2) Is Freedonia a signatory to either the Berne Convention or to
     the Universal Copyright Convention?

Part 5 - Further copyright resources.

5.1) Where can I get more information on copyright?
5.2) What materials related to copyright are available on the
     Internet?

Part 6 - Appendix: A note about legal citation form, or, "What's
         all this '17 U.S.C. 107' and '977 F.2d 1510' stuff?"


INTRODUCTION

This FAQ originally began as a general-purpose FAQ for the Usenet 
misc.legal newsgroup.  After working on that broad FAQ for several 
months, it became apparent that such a FAQ was too monumental a 
task to be undertaken by a single FAQ maintainer.  The person who 
succeeded me in the effort agreed.

I've noticed that copyright questions seem to come up constantly 
on Usenet, not only in misc.legal, but in many newsgroups, from 
comp.fonts to rec.classical.music.  It also happens to be my 
favorite area of law, so when I abandoned the misc.legal FAQ, I 
decided to retain the portions dealing with copyright law, and to 
fashion that into a Copyright Law FAQ.  This document is the 
result.

This FAQ betrays its misc.legal origin.  On misc.legal, it's very 
common, and indeed preferred, for assertions of law to be 
accompanied by citations to the relevant legal authorities.  This 
serves as a check against erroneous or misleading interpretations 
of the authorities.  It also allows the reader to verify the 
authorities, and provides an enthusiastic reader with starting 
points for further research into the subject.  In trimming the 
former misc.legal FAQ to discuss only copyright law, I've decided 
to retain these citations.  This is not only for the reasons 
stated above, but also because this FAQ, like any other static 
document, is in danger of being made out of date by future 
developments in the law.  By providing sources for the answers to 
the questions, an inquisitive reader will be able to investigate 
the source and determine, for example, if a particular appellate 
case has been overruled or has been declined to be followed by 
other appellate courts.  I have included an appendix at the end of 
the FAQ to assist newcomers in understanding the legal notation 
used in citing references.


ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I'd like to acknowledge the following people who reviewed early 
drafts of this FAQ and made valuable suggestions for 
modifications, or otherwise contributed to the FAQ:

  Thomas Deardorff <tdeardor@u.washington.edu>
  Stuart P. Derby <sderby@crick.ssctr.bcm.tmc.edu>
  Mary Jensen <cnicopy@charlie.usd.edu>
  David Lassner <david@oit.hawaii.edu>
  George Mitchell <gmitchel@library.unt.edu>
  Ronald Naylor <rnaylor@umiami.ir.miami.edu>
  Carol Odlum <carol@dreamer.rain.com>
  Laura A. Pitta <lpitta@scuacc.scu.edu>
  Hank Roth <odin@world.std.com>
  Craig A. Summerhill <craig@cni.org>
  Peter Stott <pstott@pearl.tufts.edu>
  David W. Tamkin <dattier@genesis.mcs.com>
  Glenn S. Tenney <tenney@netcom.com>
  Marina ___ [full name unknown] <marlen@sovam.com>


CHANGE LOG

V1.0   (Jul. 12, 1993) - Initial release.
V1.0.1 (Jul. 20, 1993) - Modified Q32 to add information on ftp
                         from charon.amdahl.com
V1.1.0 (Aug. 05, 1993) - Reorganized into six parts; minor
                         editorial changes.
V1.1.1 (Sep. 21, 1993) - Added FTP information for rtfm.mit.edu; 
major
                         overhaul to section 2.4 (on copyright 
duration);
                         minor editorial changes.

===================================================================================================
Archive-name: Copyright-FAQ/part2

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT COPYRIGHT (V. 1.1.1)
Part 2 - Copyright Basics.

Copyright 1993 Terry Carroll
(c) 1993 Terry Carroll


This article is the second in a series of six articles that 
contains frequently asked questions (FAQ) with answers relating to 
copyright law, particularly that of the United States.  It is 
posted to the Usenet misc.legal, misc.legal.computing, and 
misc.int-property newsgroups monthly, on or near the 17th of each 
month.  The FAQ maintainer is currently investigating the 
requirements for posting the FAQ in the news.answers and related 
newsgroups.

This FAQ is available for anonymous FTP from rtfm.mit.edu 
[18.70.0.226], in directory /pub/usenet/news.answers/Copyright-
FAQ, files part1 - part6. If  you do not have direct access by 
FTP, you can obtain a copy via email: send a  message to mail-
server@rtfm.mit.edu with the following lines in it:

  send usenet/news.answers/Copyright-FAQ/part1
  send usenet/news.answers/Copyright-FAQ/part2
  send usenet/news.answers/Copyright-FAQ/part3
  send usenet/news.answers/Copyright-FAQ/part4
  send usenet/news.answers/Copyright-FAQ/part5
  send usenet/news.answers/Copyright-FAQ/part6
  quit


DISCLAIMER - PLEASE READ.

This article is Copyright 1993 by Terry Carroll.  It may be freely 
redistributed in its entirety provided that this copyright notice 
is not removed.  It may not be sold for profit or incorporated in 
commercial documents without the written permission of the 
copyright holder.  Permission is expressly granted for this 
document to be made available for file transfer from installations 
offering unrestricted anonymous file transfer on the Internet.  
Permission is further granted for this document to be made 
available for file transfer in the Legal Forum and Desktop 
Publishing Forum data libraries of Compuserve Information 
Services.  This article is provided as is without any express or 
implied warranty.  Nothing in this article represents the views of 
Amdahl Corporation, Santa Clara University, or the Santa Clara 
Computer and High Technology Law Journal.

While all information in this article is believed to be correct at 
the time of writing, this article is for educational purposes only 
and does not purport to provide legal advice.  If you require 
legal advice, you should consult with a legal practitioner 
licensed to practice in your jurisdiction.

Terry Carroll, the FAQ-maintainer, is a computer professional, and 
is currently (7/93) a student in his final year at Santa Clara 
University School of Law and Editor-in-Chief of the Santa Clara 
Computer and High Technology Law Journal.

If you have any additions, corrections, or suggestions for 
improvement to this FAQ, please send them to one of the following 
addresses, in order of preference:

  tjc50@juts.ccc.amdahl.com
  tcarroll@scuacc.scu.edu
  71550.133@compuserve.com

I will accept suggestions for questions to be added to the FAQ, 
but please be aware that I will be more receptive to questions 
that are accompanied by answers.  :-)


FAQ ORGANIZATION.

The following table indicates the contents of each of the parts of 
the FAQ.

  Part 1 - Introduction (including full table of contents).
  Part 2 - Copyright basics.
  Part 3 - Common miscellaneous questions.
  Part 4 - International aspects.
  Part 5 - Further copyright resources.
  Part 6 - Appendix: A note about legal citation form, or, "What's
           all this '17 U.S.C. 107' and '977 F.2d 1510' stuff?"

TABLE OF CONTENTS (for this part).

Part 2 - Copyright Basics.

2.1) What is a copyright?
2.2) What is "public domain?"
2.3) I just wrote a great program/novel/song/whatever.  How can I
     get a copyright on it?
2.4) How long does a copyright last?  Does it need to be renewed?
2.5) What advantages are there to registering my work with the
     Copyright Office?
2.6) How can I register a copyright with the U.S. Copyright
     Office?
2.7) What advantages are there to including a copyright notice on
     my work?
2.8) Can I ever use a copyrighted work without permission of the 
     copyright holder, or "What is 'fair use?'"
2.9) Fair use - the legal basis of the doctrine.
2.10) [reserved.]


2.1) What is a copyright?

A copyright is a right of intellectual property granted to authors 
whereby they obtain, for a limited time, certain exclusive rights 
to their works.  In the United States, copyright is exclusively 
federal law, and derives from the "copyright clause" of the 
Constitution (Art. 1, sec. 8, cl. 8), which provides Congress with 
the power "to promote science and the useful arts, by securing for 
limited times to authors ... the exclusive right to their ... 
writings."

Copyright protects only an author's original expression.  It 
doesn't extend to any ideas, system or factual information that is 
conveyed in a copyrighted work, and it doesn't extend to any pre-
existing material that the author has incorporated into a work.  
17 U.S.C. 102(b), 103.

The standard for originality is very low.  "Original" in this 
context means only that the work has its origin in the author.  
There is no requirement that the work be different from everything 
that has come before: it need only embody a minimum level of 
creativity and owe its origin to the author claiming copyright.  
To use an extreme example, if two poets, each working in total 
isolation and unaware of one another's work, were to compose 
identical poems, both of the poems would meet the originality 
requirement for purposes of the copyright statute.  Feist 
Publications, Inc. v. Rural Telephone Service Company, Inc., 111 
S.Ct. 1282, 1287-88 (1991).

In the United States, these seven rights are recognized: 

   1) the reproductive right: the right to reproduce the work in
      copies;
   2) the adaptative right: the right to produce derivative works
      based on the copyrighted work;
   3) the distribution right: the right to distribute copies of
      the work;
   4) the performance right: the right to perform the copyrighted
      work publicly;
   5) the display right: the right to display the copyrighted work
      publicly;
   6) the attribution right (sometimes called the paternity
      right): the right of the author to claim authorship of the
      work and to prevent the use of his or her name as the author
      of a work he or she did not create;
   7) the integrity right: the right of an author to prevent the
      use of his or her name as the author of a distorted version
      of the work, to prevent intentional distortion of the work,
      and to prevent destruction of the work.

                                 17 U.S.C. 106, 106A.

Not all of these rights apply to all types of works.  For example, 
the display right applies to literary, musical, dramatic and 
choreographic works, pantomimes, and motion pictures and other 
audiovisual works.  It does not apply to sound recordings and to 
architectural works.  The attribution right and the integrity 
right apply only to works of visual art.

Also, not all rights have the same duration: in the U.S., rights 
1-5 normally have a duration of the author's life plus 50 years, 
while rights 6-7 endure only for the life of the author.

These rights are not unbounded, and in the U.S., sections 107 
through 120 of the copyright law catalog a series of restrictions 
on the rights.  Some of these restrictions are discussed elsewhere 
in the FAQ (see, e.g., sections 2.8, 2.9, and 3.7).

And, by the way, many persons erroneously spell it "copywrite," 
apparently because of the association with written material.  The 
correct word is "copyright."  It derives from an author or 
publisher's right to the copy (copy here being used in the sense 
that it is used in the newspaper trade: the text of an article).


2.2) What is "public domain?"

In contrast to copyright is "public domain."  A work in the public 
domain is one that can be freely used by anyone for any purpose.

It used to be that if a work was published without notice, it lost 
all copyright, and entered the public domain.  That's no longer 
true, and now public domain is more the exception than the rule.

There are still a number of ways that a work may be public domain.

 - The copyright may have expired (see section 2.4).

 - The work might be a work of the U.S. Government; such works
   can't be copyrighted (see section 3.6).

 - The work might be one that can't be copyrighted.  For example,
   titles, names, short phrases and slogans can't be copyrighted
   (37 C.F.R. 202.1(a)).  Note, however, they can be trademarks.
   As far as copyright law is concerned, they're public domain,
   but as far as trademark law is concerned, they might be
   protected.

 - The copyright might have been forfeited.  For example, the work
   may have been published without notice prior to the change in
   the law that eliminated the notice requirement (March 1, 1988,
   the effective date of the Berne Convention Implementation Act,
   PL 100-568, 102 Stat. 2853).

 - The copyright might have been abandoned.  This is pretty rare.
   Abandonment requires that the copyright holder intend to
   abandon the copyright, and generally requires an unambiguous
   statement or overt act on the part of the copyright holder that
   indicates his or her intent to dedicate the work to the public
   domain.  National Comics Pub. v. Fawcett Pub., 191 F.2d 594,
   598 (2d Cir., 1951).  A statement that anyone who wishes to may
   reproduce, perform, or display the work without restrictions
   might be sufficient.  Simply posting it on a computer network
   is not abandonment.

There is a common belief that if someone infringes a copyright, 
and the copyright owner does not sue or otherwise put a stop to 
the infringement, the copyright is lost and the work goes into the 
public domain.  There is some pre-1988 law on this (e.g., Stuff v. 
E.C. Publications, 432 F.2d 143 (2d Cir., 1965) and Transgo v. 
Ajac Transmission Parts, 768 F.2d 1001 (9th Cir. 1985)), but it 
seems to derive mostly from the fact that the copyright holder had 
acquiesced in the publication of the work without notice back when 
notice was a requirement.  It was the publication without notice, 
and not the lack of enforcement, that actually worked to put the 
work in the public domain.  This is forfeiture of copyright, not 
abandonment.  Because the notice requirement is now gone from 
copyright law, these cases don't have much weight today.

I can't find anything that supports the idea that failure to 
assert a copyright against an infringer can alone lead to placing 
the work in the public domain (if you have any authoritative 
information on this, please drop me a note at one of the addresses 
listed in the introduction).  Of course, circumstances may be such 
that the ability to sue a particular infringer might be waived 
(e.g., a statute of limitations may expire (see section 3.4), or 
if the infringer has reasonably relied to his or her detriment on 
the copyright holder's failure to sue, the doctrine of laches may
bar a suit), but that's only with respect to that particular 
infringer, and does not affect the status of the copyright with 
respect to others.

Sometimes you'll see a program on the network accompanied by a 
statement like "This program is public domain.  It may be freely 
distributed, but you may not charge more for it than the cost of 
the media."  Statements like these are contradictory.  If the 
program is public domain, you can do whatever you want with it, 
including charging whatever you want (although you might not get 
it).  In this example, what the programmer really wants to do is 
to retain the copyright, but provide a non-exclusive license to 
copy and distribute the work, with a condition on the license that 
only the cost of the media may be charged for it.  In this case, 
where the programmer has, in two consecutive sentences, both 
declared the work to be public domain and asserted a copyright in 
the work, it's unpredictable whether a court would interpret this 
as abandonment.

If there is any restriction upon the use of the work, even the 
restriction that it cannot be sold, the work is not public domain.  
Rather, it's copyrighted, and the restrictions are essentially 
limitations on a licensee using one or more of the exclusive 
rights described above.  For example, the restriction that a work 
may only be given away for free is a limitation using the 
distribution right.

Once a work is in the public domain, whether by expiration of 
copyright or by expressly being dedicated to the public domain by 
its copyright holder, it can never again regain copyrighted 
status.


2.3) I just wrote a great program/novel/song/whatever.  How can I 
get a copyright on it?

Good news.  You already have.  In the United States, as in most 
nations, a work is copyrighted as soon as it is created:

   Copyright protection subsists . . . in original works of
   authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression, now
   known or later developed, from which they can be perceived,
   reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with
   the aid of a machine or device.  17 U.S.C. 102(a).

and,

   A work is "fixed" in a tangible medium of expression when its
   embodiment in a copy or phonorecord, by or under the authority
   of the author, is sufficiently permanent or stable to permit it
   to be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated for a
   period of more than transitory duration.  17 U.S.C. 101.

What this means in simple terms is that as soon as you've created 
your original work, it's copyrighted.  Because of the "either 
directly or with the aid of a machine or device" provision, it 
doesn't matter whether you've printed it out, or if it's only on 
your hard drive or floppy disk.

You don't need any special formalities, such as registering the 
work with the Copyright Office, or providing a copyright notice 
(notice stopped being a requirement when the U.S. signed the Berne 
Convention and enacted Berne Convention Implementation Act in 
1988; see section 4.1 for more information).

That being said, you might want to register the work and provide a 
copyright notice anyway.  There are certain advantages to doing so 
(see sections 2.5 and 2.7).


2.4) How long does a copyright last?  Does it need to be renewed?

The law of copyright duration has undergone many twists and turns.  
There have been several major changes in copyright duration law 
that contribute to this complication:

1 - the number of years used in calculating durations has changed, 
from
    either 28 or 56 to either 50, 75 or 100, depending on the type 
of
    work.

2 - the basis for determining the endpoint of a copyright has 
changed; it
    used to be measured based on when the work was published, now 
it's
    based on when the work's author dies, and sometimes the work 
was
    created and/or when it was published.

3 - There used to be multiple copyright terms, and if the 
copyright was
    not renewed at the end of the first term, it lapsed.  Today, 
except
    as a minor hangover from the past, there is a single copyright 
term;
    renewal is not required.

4 - Not all the provisions changed at the same time.  For one 
thing,
    although the Copyright Act of 1976 did not go into effect 
until 1978,
    the duration provisions were settled very early, and through a 
series
    of several special purpose laws (Public Laws 87-668, 89-142, 
90-141,
    90-416, 91-147, 91-555, 92-170, 92-566 and 93-573), began to 
take
    effect in 1962, 16 years earlier than the rest of the Act.  
For
    another thing, even when the concept of multiple "copyright 
terms"
    was discarded, for a long time, works that were still in their 
first
    term of copyright still needed to be renewed to avoid going 
into
    public domain.  This requirement remained in place until it 
was
    finally removed in 1992 (by P.L. 102-307, 106 Stat. 264).

So while the law at anyone time has always been pretty simple, the 
cumulative effect of the changes have made the deceptively simple 
question "how long does a copyright last?" quite complicated to 
answer.

The following discussion is based on a current year of 1993.  I've 
tried to indicate the basis for calculations here, so you can see 
which need to be recalculated year by year, and which are okay as 
is.  Note that 1992 is listed as a special year twice, and for two 
different reasons.  First, it's the year in which renewals were 
made optional.  Second, 1992 is the most recent year that has seen 
any copyright expirations (regardless of the scheme used to 
compute duration, under 17 U.S.C. 305, copyrights always expire on 
December 31 of the expiration year and at the time of this writing 
(September 1993), December 31, 1993 has not yet arrived).  The 
second use will obviously change as the years advance.

With these concerns in mind, here's a short analysis of copyright 
duration.

Generally, for works created in 1978 or later, a copyright lasts 
for fifty years beyond the life of the work's author, after which 
it lapses into public domain.  17 U.S.C. 302(a).  If the work is 
prepared by two or more authors (a "joint work"), its copyright 
lasts for fifty years after the last surviving author dies.  17 
U.S.C. 302(b).  For anonymous and pseudonymous works, and for 
works made for hire, copyright exists for 100 years from the date 
of creation, or 75 years from the date of first publication, 
whichever comes first.  17 U.S.C. 302(c).  No renewal is necessary 
or permitted.  (The year 1978 in this paragraph is because January 
1, 1978 is the date on which the Copyright Act of 1976 took 
effect.)

For works to which the attribution right and integrity right apply 
(see section 2.1), these rights endure only for the lifetime of 
the author.  17 U.S.C. 106A(d).

For works published in the years 1964 through 1977, copyright 
lasts for 75 years from date of publication.  17 U.S.C. 304(a).  
In the past, copyright lasted only for 28 years, unless a renewal 
was filed with the Copyright Office.  Such a renewal obtained an 
additional 47 years of protection.  Renewal was made optional in 
June 1992 by P.L. 102-307, 106 Stat. 264.  (The year 1964 comes 
from the fact that renewal was made optional in 1992, and 1992 
minus 28 (the length of the first copyright period) equals 1964.)

For works published in the years 1904 through 1963, the copyright 
lasted for 28 years from date of publication; if the copyright was 
not renewed, it lapsed, and the work went into the public domain.  
Another 28 years of protection could be obtained by filing a 
renewal, for a total term of 56 years (1904 comes from the fact 
that the U.S. effectively switched to a 47-year second term in 
1962, and 1962 minus 56 (the old maximum duration of two 28-year 
terms) equals 1904).  If the copyright was not renewed after its 
initial 28-year term, the work lapsed into public domain.  
Generally, all copyrights granted in 1917 or earlier lapsed at the 
latest in 1992 and are now in public domain (1992 (last year) 
minus 75 equals 1917).  Copyrights granted in the period 1918 
through 1949 continue to exist only if they were renewed, and 
expire in the period 1993 through 2006.

Finally, just to complicate things: if the work was created but 
not published prior to 1978, its copyright duration is calculated 
as if it had been created on January 1, 1978, and lasts as long as 
that calculation specifies, or through 2002, whichever is later.  
If the work is published in 2002 or earlier, then the copyright 
lasts as long as that calculation specifies, or through 2027, 
whichever is later  17 U.S.C. 303.

Phew!  And I thought that there wouldn't be much math in law.


2.5) What advantages are there to registering my work with the 
Copyright Office?

In order to sue for infringement, with some exceptions, your work 
must be registered with the Copyright Office.  However, you may 
register after the infringement occurs, as long as it's before 
filing your lawsuit.

The advantage to registering prior to infringement is that it 
allows you some additional remedies that aren't available if you 
registered after infringement: namely, statutory damages and 
attorney's fees.  17 U.S.C. 412.

"Statutory damages" are damages specified in the statute, as 
opposed to "actual damages," which are damages that you can 
demonstrate in court that you actually suffered.  If you 
registered your work prior to infringement, you can skip showing 
any actual damage, and just elect to receive statutory damages.  
17 U.S.C. 504(a).

Statutory damages for copyright infringement are $500 - $20,000, 
as determined by the judge.  If the infringer proves that he or 
she was not aware and had no reason to believe that his or her 
acts constituted infringement, the court may lower damages to as 
low as $200 per infringement.  On the other hand, if the plaintiff 
proves that the defendant's infringement was  "committed 
willfully," the judge may award damages to as high as $100,000 per 
infringement.  17 U.S.C. 504(c).

In deciding whether to register your work, you must weigh the 
probability of an infringement action (and the advantages of 
attorney's fees and statutory damages in such an action) against 
the $20 cost of registration.

CAVEAT:  On February 16, 1993, the Copyright Reform Act of 1993 
was introduced in both houses of the 102nd Congress (H.R. 897 in 
the House of Representatives and S.373 in the Senate).  If the 
bill passes, much of the information in this entry will be 
rendered incorrect.  Specifically, the bill would, among other 
things, remove the requirement for registration prior to bringing 
suit, and would remove the restrictions on statutory damages that 
are described above.


2.6) How can I register a copyright with the U.S. Copyright 
Office?

To register a copyright, file the appropriate form with the U.S. 
Copyright Office, including the payment for registration costs 
($20).

For most types of work being published in the United States, two 
copies of the work being registered must be deposited with the 
Copyright Office for the use of the Library of Congress.  Strictly 
speaking, the deposit is not a requirement for copyright.  
However, failing to make the deposit at time of publication can 
result in fines.  Some works are exempt from the deposit 
requirement.

Registration forms may be ordered by calling the Copyright Office 
Hotline (see section 5.1).  When the answering machine answers, 
leave a message with your name and address, identifying the 
material you are ordering.  Ask for the form either by form 
number, or by Copyright Office Information Package number.  A 
Copyright Office Information Package is a collection of 
information on registering copyright for a particular type of 
work.  It includes the appropriate forms, instructions for 
completing them and other useful information.

Here is a list of commonly requested forms and Copyright Office 
Information Packages, arranged by type of copyrighted work:

 - Books, manuscripts and speeches and other nondramatic literary
   works:  Form TX, Package 109
 - Computer programs: Form TX, Package 113
 - Music (sheet or lyrics): Form PA, Package 105
 - Music (sound recording): Form SR, Package 121
 - Cartoons and comic strips: Form VA, Package 111
 - Photographs: Form VA, Package 107
 - Drawings, prints, and other works of visual arts: Form VA,
   Package 115
 - Motion pictures and video recordings: Form PA, Package 110
 - Dramatic scripts, plays, and screenplays: Form PA, Package 119
 - Games: Form TX, Package 108


2.7) What advantages are there to including a copyright notice on 
my work?

As noted in section 2.3, under U.S. law, a work is copyrighted as 
soon as it is created.  No notice is required to retain copyright.  
While most of the world has operated this way for some time, this 
is a comparatively recent change in U.S. copyright law, as of 
March 1, 1988, the effective date of the Berne Convention 
Implementation Act, PL 100-568, 102 Stat. 2853 (See sections 4.1 
and 4.2 for a discussion of the Berne Convention).

Although notice is no longer a requirement, there are still some 
sound reasons for using one anyway.

If you include a copyright notice on a published copy of your work 
to which the defendant in an infringement suit had access, he or 
she may not plead "innocent infringement" (i.e., that he or she 
was not aware and had no reason to believe that his or her acts 
constituted infringement, the so-called "innocent infringement" 
defense) in mitigation of actual or statutory damages.  17 U.S.C. 
401(d), 402(d).

Unlike the decision of whether to register your work, this is a 
no-brainer, since it's simple and free: just include a notice on 
every published copy of the work.

A proper copyright notice consists of three things: 1) the letter 
"C" in a circle (called, logically enough, the "copyright 
symbol"), or the word "Copyright," or the abbreviation "Copr."; 2) 
the year of first publication; 3) the name of the copyright owner.  
17 U.S.C. 401(b).

Using "(C)" in place of a copyright symbol is not a good idea.  To 
the best of my knowledge, no court has expressly ruled one way or 
another whether "(C)" is a sufficient substitute for a copyright 
symbol.  One case, Videotronics v. Bend Electronics, 586 F.Supp. 
478, 481 (D. Nev. 1984), implies that it is not sufficient; 
another, Forry v. Neundorfer, 837 F.2d 259, 266 (6th Cir., 1988), 
implies that it might be.  While courts are generally lenient in 
allowing for what makes up a valid notice, it's best to be 
squarely within the statute.  If you can't make a copyright 
symbol, either spell the word out, or use the "Copr." 
abbreviation.

As a side note with regard to international protection, the 
Universal Copyright Convention requires that, at a minimum, all 
signatory nations that require notice must accept the C-in-a-
circle variant; it does not provide a provision for a spelled out 
variant.  On the other hand, most nations that have signed a 
copyright treaty are signatories to the Berne Convention, which 
forbids requiring a notice as a condition to copyright.  See 
section 4.1 for details.

For a sound recording, the notice requirement is similar, except 
that it uses the letter "P" (for "Phonorecord") in a circle, plus 
the year and owner name.  17 U.S.C. 402(b).  The statute does not 
provide a spelled out alternative to the P-in-a-circle.


2.8) Can I ever use a copyrighted work without permission of the 
copyright holder, or "What is 'fair use?'"

In any analysis of copyright, it's important to remember the law's 
constitutional purpose: to promote science and the useful arts.  
"Fair use" is a doctrine that permits courts to avoid rigid 
application of the copyright statute when to do otherwise would 
stifle the very creativity that copyright law is designed to 
foster.  The doctrine of fair use recognizes that the exclusive 
rights inherent in a copyright are not absolute, and that non-
holders of the copyright are entitled to make use of a copyrighted 
work that technically would otherwise infringe upon one or more of 
the exclusive rights.  Although fair use originated "for purposes 
such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, ... 
scholarship, or research," it also applies in other areas, as some 
of the examples below illustrate.  However, courts seem more 
willing to accept an assertion of fair use when the use falls into 
one of the above categories.

Perhaps more than any other area of copyright, fair use is a 
highly fact-specific determination.  Copyright Office document 
FL102 puts it this way: "The distinction between 'fair use' and 
infringement may be unclear and not easily defined.  There is no 
specific number of words, lines, or notes that may safely be taken 
without permission.  Acknowledging the source of the copyrighted 
material does not substitute for obtaining permission."

The document then quotes from the 1961 Report of the Register of 
Copyrights on the General Revision of the U.S. Copyright Law., 
providing the following examples of activities that courts have 
held to be fair use:
 
 - Quotation of excerpts in a review or criticism for purposes of 
   illustration or comment;
 - Quotation of short passages in a scholarly or technical work 
   for illustration or clarification of the author's observations;
 - Use in a parody of some of the content of the work parodied;
 - Summary of an address or article with brief quotations, in a 
   news report;
 - Reproduction by a library of a portion of a work to replace 
   part of a damaged copy;
 - Reproduction by a teacher or student of a small part of a work 
   to illustrate a lesson;
 - Reproduction of a work in legislative or judicial proceedings 
   or reports;
 - Incidental and fortuitous reproduction in a newsreel or 
   broadcast, of a work located in the scene of an event being 
   reported.

Document FL102 is included in Copyright Office information kit 102 
("Fair Use"), which can be ordered from the Copyright Office (see 
section 5.1).

Carol Odlum <carol@dreamer.rain.com>, a free-lance editor, has 
provided a set of guidelines used by one publisher as rules of 
thumb.  These certainly have no legal force, but it's instructive 
to note at least one publisher's interpretation of what "fair use" 
means in the real world.  The publisher uses the following 
criteria for determining when permission of the copyright holder 
must be sought in order for the work to be used:

 - Prose quotations of more than 300 words from a scholarly book.
   (If a source is quoted several times for a total of 300 words
   or more, permission must be obtained.);
 - Prose quotations of more than 150 words from a popular,
   general-market book;
 - Prose quotations of more than 50 words from a scholarly
   journal;
 - Quotations of more than 2 lines of poetry or lyrics;
 - Quotations of more than 1 sentence from a popular magazine or
   newspaper;
 - Quotations of any length from letters or other personal
   communications, interviews, questionnaires, speeches, 
   unpublished dissertations, and radio or television broadcasts.
 - Illustrations -- including drawings, graphs, diagrams, charts,
   maps, artwork, and photographs -- created by someone else;
 - Music examples of more than 4 measures;
 - Tables compiled by someone else.


2.9) Fair use - the legal basis of the doctrine.

Section 2.8, above, describes fair use in a nutshell.  This 
follow-on entry provides a more detailed description of the 
doctrine for those interested in the nuts and bolts.

There are four factors used to decide whether a particular use of 
a copyrighted work is a fair use:

   (1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether
       such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit
       educational purposes;
   (2) the nature of the copyrighted work;
   (3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in
       relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
   (4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or
       value of the copyrighted work.

                                 17 U.S.C. 107.

The remainder of this answer discusses how each of these factors 
has been interpreted.

(1) The purpose and character of the use:  In considering the 
purpose and character of the use, courts have looked to two 
characteristics of the use: whether the use is commercial and, 
somewhat less frequently, whether the use is a "productive" one.

If the copyrighted work is being used commercially, e.g., all or 
part of a copyrighted drawing being used in a commercially 
published book on drawing techniques, that's a strike against it 
being fair use.  On the other hand, if the same drawing were used 
in a non-profit school to teach children to draw, then this factor 
would be in favor of finding a fair use.  Most situations are 
somewhere in between.  That is, a use might not be commercial, but 
it's not necessarily non-profit educational, either.

Note, though, that the statute does not command this 
"commercial/non-profit educational" balance, and not all courts 
use it, at least not by itself.  Commercial use might be forgiven 
if the use is characterized as a "productive" or "transformative" 
use, i.e., a use of the material that interprets or otherwise adds 
value to the material taken from the copyrighted work.  See 
Consumers Union v. General Signal Corp., 724 F.2d 1044, 1047 (2nd 
Cir. 1983) (noting that the use of one of Consumer Report 
magazine's reviews of a vacuum cleaner in an advertisement was a 
fair use, in part because the purpose and character of the 
advertisement was in part to educate consumers).  The Supreme 
Court has noted that the distinction between "productive" and 
"unproductive" uses is not wholly determinative, but is helpful in 
balancing the interests.  Sony Corp. v. Universal City Studios, 
464 U.S. 417, 451 n.40 (1983).

(2) The nature of the copyrighted work:  If the work being used is 
one that is factual or functional in nature, then that's a point 
in favor of use of that work being a fair use.  That's because 
copyright isn't available for facts themselves, and the courts 
recognize that it's kind of dumb to force someone with a newspaper 
clipping to completely rewrite it to avoid infringement (besides, 
a paraphrase is still an infringement, because it qualifies as 
creating a derivative work, even if it's not a direct copy).  If 
the work is a fictional or artistic one, though, taking the work 
is taking much more than any underlying facts.  A fictional or 
artistic work is more expressive than a factual one, so the 
copyright (which is designed to protect expression) is stronger.  
Even in factual works, however, where the portion used includes 
subjective descriptions whose power lies in the author's 
individualized expression, this factor might go against a finding 
of fair use, if the use exceeds that necessary to disseminate the 
facts.  See Harper and Row v. Nation Enterprises, 471 U.S. 539 
(1985) (finding no fair use for infringement of former U.S. 
President Ford's memoirs despite its factual content).

Another point that's often examined in looking at the nature of 
the copyrighted work is whether the work has been published.  
Courts will generally consider a use of an unpublished work as 
more likely to infringe than a similar use of a published work.  
Harper and Row v. Nation Enterprises, 471 U.S. 539, 564 (1985).  
This is for two reasons.  First, the first publication is often 
the most valuable to the copyright holder.  Second, it affects the 
copyright holder's ability to choose not to publish the work at 
all.  See Salinger v. Random House, 811 F.2d 90, 97 (2nd Cir. 
1987).

As with the first factor, while the "fact/fiction" balance and
"published/unpublished" balance are two of the most common, they 
are not commanded by the statute, which only requires considering 
the "nature of the copyrighted work."  For example, in Sega v. 
Accolade, 977 F.2d 1510, 1525 (9th Cir., 1993), the Court of 
Appeals noted that the nature of most computer programs 
distributed in object code is that the functional (and therefore 
unprotected) elements cannot be discerned without disassembly.  
This supported the court's opinion that, in certain limited 
instances, disassembling of a competitor's product to find 
interface information that cannot be obtained in any other way is 
a fair use of the work, despite the fact that code disassembly 
necessarily involves making a copy of the copyrighted program.

(3) The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation 
to the copyrighted work as a whole:  This appears simpler than it 
really is.  On the face of it, it means that if you incorporate 
95% of a copyrighted work into another work, it's a lot less 
likely to be a fair use than if you take only a small portion, 
say, 5%.  And that's true.  However, assessing this factor is a 
bit more complex than that simple statement.  Even if only a small 
portion of the work is used, if that portion is "qualitatively 
substantial," e.g., if the portion used is essentially the heart 
of the work, that use will be deemed to have been "substantial," 
and could go against a finding of fair use.  See Harper and Row v. 
Nation Enterprises, 471 U.S. 539 (1985) (finding no fair use for 
infringement of former U.S. President Ford's memoirs, where the 
portion used (which described Ford's decision to pardon former 
President Nixon) included "the most interesting and moving parts 
of the entire manuscript"), and Roy Export Co. v. Columbia 
Broadcasting System, 503 F.Supp. 1137 (S.D.N.Y. 1980) (taking of 
55 seconds out of 89-minute film deemed "qualitatively 
substantial").

To confuse matters further, some courts have (probably 
erroneously) interpreted this factor by looking at what percentage 
of the work _using_ the material is composed of material from the 
copyrighted work, rather than what percentage of the copyrighted 
work was used.  See, e.g., Association of American Medical 
Colleges v. Mikaelian, 571 F.Supp. 144 (E.D. Pa, 1983), aff'd 734 
F.2d 3 (3rd Cir., 1984), aff'd 734 F.2d 6 (3rd Cir., 1984).  While 
this interpretation is probably erroneous, it's worth bearing in 
mind that, at least in one judge's courtroom in the Eastern 
District of Pennsylvania, that's how the statute will be 
interpreted.

(4) The effect of the use upon the potential market for or value 
of the copyrighted work:  The U.S. Supreme Court has stated that 
this factor is "undoubtedly the single most important element of 
fair use."  Harper and Row v. Nation Enterprises, 471 U.S. 539 
(1985).  The late Professor Melvin Nimmer, in his treatise on 
copyright law, paraphrased it, "Fair use, when properly applied, 
is limited to copying by others which does not materially impair 
the marketability of the work which is copied."  Nimmer on 
Copyright, section 1.10[D].  If the use impacts the market for the 
work, the use is less likely to be held to be a fair use.

Note also that the weighing is of the impact on the potential 
market, not on the actual market.  For example, although Playboy 
magazine does not distribute its pictures in machine-readable 
form, it may choose to do so in the future.  One might argue that 
digitizing a picture and posting it on the net does not impact the 
current market for the magazine originals.  However, it impacts 
the potential (but currently non-existent) market for machine-
readable copies.  Because there is an impact on the potential 
market, an analysis of this factor in such a situation would not 
support a finding of fair use.

If all this sounds like hopeless confusion, you're not too far 
off.  Often, whether a use is a fair use is a very subjective 
conclusion.  In the Harper and Row case cited above, for example, 
the Supreme Court was split 6-3.  In the famous "Betamax case," 
Sony v. Universal City Studios, 464 U.S. 417 (1984) (in which the 
Supreme Court found that off-air non-archival videotaping of 
broadcast television was a fair use), the split was 5-4.  In both 
of these cases, the District Court ruled one way (no fair use in 
Harper and Row, fair use in Sony) and was reversed by the Court of 
Appeals, which was then itself reversed by the Supreme Court.  
This goes to show that even well-educated jurists are capable of 
disagreeing on the application of this doctrine.

*****************************************************************************

Archive-name: Copyright-FAQ/part3

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT COPYRIGHT (V. 1.1.1)
Part 3 - Common miscellaneous questions.

Copyright 1993 Terry Carroll
(c) 1993 Terry Carroll


This article is the third in a series of six articles that 
contains frequently asked questions (FAQ) with answers relating to 
copyright law, particularly that of the United States.  It is 
posted to the Usenet misc.legal, misc.legal.computing, and 
misc.int-property newsgroups monthly, on or near the 17th of each 
month.  The FAQ maintainer is currently investigating the 
requirements for posting the FAQ in the news.answers and related 
newsgroups.

This FAQ is available for anonymous FTP from rtfm.mit.edu 
[18.70.0.226], in directory /pub/usenet/news.answers/Copyright-
FAQ, files part1 - part6. If  you do not have direct access by 
FTP, you can obtain a copy via email: send a  message to mail-
server@rtfm.mit.edu with the following lines in it:

  send usenet/news.answers/Copyright-FAQ/part1
  send usenet/news.answers/Copyright-FAQ/part2
  send usenet/news.answers/Copyright-FAQ/part3
  send usenet/news.answers/Copyright-FAQ/part4
  send usenet/news.answers/Copyright-FAQ/part5
  send usenet/news.answers/Copyright-FAQ/part6
  quit


DISCLAIMER - PLEASE READ.

This article is Copyright 1993 by Terry Carroll.  It may be freely 
redistributed in its entirety provided that this copyright notice 
is not removed.  It may not be sold for profit or incorporated in 
commercial documents without the written permission of the 
copyright holder.  Permission is expressly granted for this 
document to be made available for file transfer from installations 
offering unrestricted anonymous file transfer on the Internet.  
Permission is further granted for this document to be made 
available for file transfer in the Legal Forum and Desktop 
Publishing Forum data libraries of Compuserve Information 
Services.  This article is provided as is without any express or 
implied warranty.  Nothing in this article represents the views of 
Amdahl Corporation, Santa Clara University, or the Santa Clara 
Computer and High Technology Law Journal.

While all information in this article is believed to be correct at 
the time of writing, this article is for educational purposes only 
and does not purport to provide legal advice.  If you require 
legal advice, you should consult with a legal practitioner 
licensed to practice in your jurisdiction.

Terry Carroll, the FAQ-maintainer, is a computer professional, and 
is currently (7/93) a student in his final year at Santa Clara 
University School of Law and Editor-in-Chief of the Santa Clara 
Computer and High Technology Law Journal.

If you have any additions, corrections, or suggestions for 
improvement to this FAQ, please send them to one of the following 
addresses, in order of preference:

  tjc50@juts.ccc.amdahl.com
  tcarroll@scuacc.scu.edu
  71550.133@compuserve.com

I will accept suggestions for questions to be added to the FAQ, 
but please be aware that I will be more receptive to questions 
that are accompanied by answers.  :-)


FAQ ORGANIZATION.

The following table indicates the contents of each of the parts of 
the FAQ.

  Part 1 - Introduction (including full table of contents).
  Part 2 - Copyright basics.
  Part 3 - Common miscellaneous questions.
  Part 4 - International aspects.
  Part 5 - Further copyright resources.
  Part 6 - Appendix: A note about legal citation form, or, "What's
           all this '17 U.S.C. 107' and '977 F.2d 1510' stuff?"

TABLE OF CONTENTS (for this part).

Part 3 - Common miscellaneous questions.

3.1) Who owns the copyright to something I wrote at work, me or my 
     company?
3.2) [reserved.]
3.3) Is copyright infringement a crime, or a civil matter?
3.4) What is the statute of limitation for copyright infringement?
3.5) Can the government be sued for copyright infringement?
3.6) Can the government copyright its works?
3.7) Can I legally make a cassette copy of a musical CD for my own
     use, so I can play it in my car?
3.8) Are Usenet postings and email messages copyrighted?
3.9) Are fonts copyrighted?
3.10) What does "All Rights Reserved" mean?
3.11) What's the difference between a copyright and a patent?
3.12) Why is there so little in this FAQ about patents?
3.13 - 3.18) [reserved.]


3.1) Who owns the copyright to something I wrote at work, me or my 
company?

That depends on a lot of things.  Normally, you are the author of 
the work and own the copyright.  There are two broad mechanisms by 
which your company may own the copyright, though: assignment and 
the work-made-for-hire doctrine.

ASSIGNMENT: Even if you are the author, and therefore the 
copyright is initially yours, it may now belong to your company if 
you assigned the copyright to them.  A full assignment of 
copyright must be in writing, and signed; it can't be implied.  17 
U.S.C. 204.  Therefore, if you're the author in a copyright sense, 
and did not assign the copyright to your company in writing, you 
still own it.  Please note, however, that some companies make it a 
practice to acquire a blanket assignment of copyright in any works 
created on the job at time of hiring.

Note, though, that even in the absence of a written contract, your 
actions might have been sufficient to grant the company an implied 
license to the work.  For example, in the case of Effects 
Associates v. Cohen, 908 F.2d 555 (9th Cir., 1990), a film 
producer (Cohen) claimed that he owned copyright in special 
effects film footage depicting "great gobs of alien yogurt oozing 
out of a defunct factory."  The footage was produced by Effects 
Associates, a special effects company, and there was no written 
assignment of copyright.  The court ruled that Effects retained 
ownership of the copyright, but that Cohen had an implied license 
to use it in his horror film, "The Stuff," because Effects had 
"created the work at [Cohen's] request and handed it over, 
intending that [Cohen] copy and distribute it."  Because the 
license was non-exclusive, it wasn't a complete transfer of 
copyright, and did not need to be in writing.  Effects was free to 
sell the same footage to other moviemakers.

WORK MADE FOR HIRE:  If a work qualifies as a work made for hire, 
the company is the author for purposes of copyright, and copyright 
initially vests in the company.  A work is a work made for hire 
under either of two circumstances.  First, if it is a work 
prepared by an employee within the scope of employment.  Second, 
if the work was specially commissioned, is one of a short list of 
relatively esoteric types (a contribution to a collective work, a 
part of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, a translation, 
a supplementary work, as a compilation, as an instructional text, 
a test, answer material for a test, or an atlas), and the parties 
agreed in writing that it was to be considered a work for hire.  
17 U.S.C. 101.

To determine if a work is one prepared by an employee within the 
scope of employment, there are two important considerations.

First, was the work prepared by an employee, or by an independent 
contractor?  Several facts, such as whether taxes were withheld, 
who supervised the work, artistic control, setting of working 
hours, etc., will be examined to determine this factor.  A good 
case discussing these factors is CCNV v. Reid, 490 U.S. 730 
(1989).

The second consideration is whether the work was within the scope 
of the employment.

Unless these two considerations are met, the work will not be 
considered one made for hire under the employee test, and the 
"employee" will retain copyright.  Of course, the same 
considerations discussed above regarding an implied license might 
exist, even in cases where the work-made-for-hire doctrine does 
not apply.


3.2) [reserved.]


3.3) Is copyright infringement a crime, or a civil matter?

It's always at least a civil matter (a tort).  17 U.S.C. 501(b) 
details the mechanisms by which an owner of a copyright may file a 
civil suit, and 28 U.S.C. 1338 expressly refers to civil actions 
arising under the copyright act.

However, under certain circumstances, it may also be a federal 
crime.  A copyright infringement is subject to criminal 
prosecution if infringement is willful and for purposes of 
commercial advantage or private financial gain.  17 U.S.C. 506(a).  
If the offense consists of the reproduction or distribution, 
during any 180-day period, of 10 or more copies having a retail 
value of more than $2,500, the offense is a felony; otherwise, the 
offense is a misdemeanor.  18 U.S.C. 2319.

As a side note, although 18 U.S.C. 2319 purports to prescribe the 
penalties for criminal infringement, all crimes covered by Title 
18 have their penalties determined by the U.S. Sentencing 
Guidelines, another part of Title 18.


3.4) What is the statute of limitation for copyright infringement?

For both civil suits and criminal prosecutions, the statute of 
limitations for copyright infringement is three years.  17 U.S.C. 
507.


3.5) Can the government be sued for copyright infringement?

Yes.  The United States has expressly waived its immunity to suit 
for copyright infringement.  28 U.S.C. 1498.

For some time, it was unclear whether the Eleventh Amendment of 
the U.S. Constitution operated to make a state immune from suit 
for copyright infringement.  In BV Engineering v. University of 
California at Los Angeles, 858 F.2d 1394 (9th Cir., 1988), UCLA 
successfully defended a copyright infringement suit on the ground 
that it had such immunity.  Although UCLA won that suit, Congress 
responded by passing the Copyright Remedy Clarification Act, PL 
101-553, in 1990.  This law added section 511 to the Copyright 
Act, which had the effect of removing the immunity defense.  It 
became effective June 1, 1991.

Today the law is very clear: the United States government and the 
governments of each state may be sued for copyright infringement, 
and may not plead immunity as a defense.


3.6) Can the government copyright its works?

This one has to be taken slowly, and we'll look at federal and 
state governments separately, because the rules are different.

With one exception, works of the United States government are 
public domain.  17 U.S.C. 105.  The only exception is for standard 
reference data produced by the U.S. Secretary of Commerce under 
the Standard Reference Data Act, 15 U.S.C. 290e.

However, there's a big loophole here: while the U.S government 
can't get copyright for its own works, it can have an existing 
copyright assigned to it.  So if the U.S. government produces a 
work, it's not copyrighted.  But if an independent contractor 
working for the government produces a work, it is copyrighted, and 
nothing prevents that contractor from assigning the copyright back
to the government.  This reconciles the fact that the U.S. 
government can't copyright its works with the fact that if you 
stay up late on weekends, you'll see Public Service Announcements 
against drunk driving that say "Copyright U.S. Department of 
Transportation."

Also, there are some entities that might seem to be part of the 
U.S. government, but are not.  For example, the U.S. Postal 
Service is no longer a branch of the U.S. government.  In 
addition, while under U.S. control, the District of Columbia, 
Puerto Rico, and organized territories of the U.S. are not 
considered to be part of the U.S. government for purposes of 
copyright law.

Whether a state can copyright its works is a different matter.  
Unlike the U.S. government, a state government's works are subject 
to copyright.  It is up to each state to decide whether to retain 
the copyright or whether such works are to be automatically made 
public domain.

A related question that sometimes comes up is whether a government 
may copyright its laws.  In the case of the federal government, 
because of the factors discussed above, the answer is clearly that 
it cannot.  With state governments, it's a little less clear.  
There is no statute, case, or regulation that indicates that a 
state cannot copyright its laws.  However, it is the position of 
the U.S. Copyright Office that a state's laws may not be 
copyrighted.  The Compendium of Copyright Office Practices 
(Compendium II) section 206.01 states, "Edicts of government, such 
as judicial opinions, administrative rulings, legislative 
enactments, public ordinances, and similar official legal 
documents are not copyrightable for reasons of public policy.  
This apples to such works whether they are Federal, State, or 
local as well as to those of foreign governments."

Now, the Compendium II does not have force of law.  But this does 
indicate that any state trying to register a copyright in its laws 
would be refused registration by the Copyright Office.  As a 
result, it would either have to successfully sue the Office to 
force registration, or it would bear the burden of establishing 
that its work was indeed copyrighted in the event of an 
infringement suit (normally, a registration fulfills that burden).  
It's a safe bet that any state or city trying to assert a 
copyright in its laws would have an uphill battle ahead of it.


3.7) Can I legally make a cassette copy of a musical CD for my own 
use, so I can play it in my car?

This issue has been argued back and forth for many years, with 
consumers groups arguing that this was a fair use (see sections 
2.8 and 2.9), and the recording industry arguing that it was not.  
The issue was finally settled by Congress when the Audio Home 
Recording Act (AHRA) (P.L. 102-563, 106 Stat. 4237, codified at 17 
U.S.C. 1001 - 1010) was passed in October 1992.  This Act added 
ten sections to Title 17, one of which provided an alternative to 
the fair use analysis for musical recordings.  The new section 
states:

   No action may be brought under this title alleging infringement
   of copyright based on the manufacture, importation, or
   distribution of a digital audio recording device, a digital
   audio recording medium, an analog recording device, or an
   analog recording medium, or based on the noncommercial use by a
   consumer of such a device or medium for making digital musical
   recordings or analog musical recordings.

                                 17 U.S.C. 1008.

As the legislative history to this statute noted, "In short, the 
reported legislation would clearly establish that consumers cannot 
be sued for making analog or digital audio copies for private 
noncommercial use." H.R. Rep. 102-780(I).

Does this mean you can make copies for your family and friends, as 
long as it's not "commercial?"  A strict reading of the words in 
the statute would seem to say that you may.  This is not as 
outrageous as it sounds.  Part of the impetus behind the AHRA was 
the perception that blank tapes were being used mostly to copy 
commercial musical sound recordings.  As a result, the AHRA 
provided that a royalty payment (referred to as a "DAT tax" by its 
detractors) be paid for each sale of digital audio tape to 
compensate authors of musical works and sound recordings for the 
profits lost due to these copies. See 17 U.S.C. 1003, 1004.  
Arguably, the AHRA anticipates and allows exactly this type of 
copying, and a literal reading of section 1008 would tend to 
support this position.  But the AHRA is still sufficiently new 
this hasn't been tested in court yet.

Note, also, that this section applies only to musical recordings; 
it clearly does not include spoken word recordings.  Of course, it 
is still possible that such a use of a spoken word recording might 
still be considered a section 107 fair use (see sections 2.8 and 
2.9), even though section 1008 does not apply to provide a clear 
exemption.


3.8) Are Usenet postings and email messages copyrighted?

Almost certainly.  They meet the requirement of being original 
works of authorship fixed in a tangible medium of expression (see 
section 2.3).  They haven't been put in the public domain; 
generally, only an expiration of copyright or an unambiguous 
declaration by an author is sufficient to place a work into public 
domain.

However, at least with Usenet postings, there are two doctrines 
which probably allow at least some copying: fair use (see sections 
2.8 and 2.9) and implied license.

Whether a particular use of a Usenet posting is a fair use is, as 
always, a very fact-specific determination.  However, it's 
probably safe to say that it's a fair use if the use was not 
commercial in nature, the posting was not an artistic or dramatic 
work (e.g.,, it was the writer's opinion, or a declaration of 
facts, and not something like a poem or short story), only as much 
of the posting was copied as was necessary (e.g., a short 
quotation for purposes of criticism and comment), and there was 
little or no impact on any market for the posting.

A similar argument can be made for quoting of private email 
messages.  Of course, revealing the contents of a private email 
message could run afoul of any of a number of non-copyright laws: 
defamation, invasion of privacy, and trade secrecy, to name a few.  
So even if you won't be violating any copyright laws, you should 
consider other factors that may expose you to legal liability 
before revealing a private message's contents.

Proponents of the implied license idea point out that Usenet 
postings are routinely copied and quoted, and anyone posting to 
Usenet is granting an implied license for others to similarly copy 
or quote that posting, too.  It's not clear whether such implied 
license extends beyond Usenet, or indeed, what "Usenet" really 
means (does it include, for example, Internet mailing lists?  Does 
it include netnews on CD-ROM?).  If a posting includes an express 
limitation on the right to copy or quote, it's not at all certain 
whether the express limitation or the implied license will 
control.  No doubt it depends on the specific facts.  For example, 
was the limitation clearly visible to the person who did the 
copying?  Was the limitation placed such that it would be visible 
only after the person who did the copying invested time and money 
to get the posting, believing it to be without any limitation?

With private email messages, a copier who relies solely on the 
implied license argument will probably lose, since it's hard to 
argue that by sending the private message to a limited audience, 
the sender intended for it to be copied and quoted.  For email 
messages to a public mailing list, the implied license argument 
may still be sound.

These theories are largely speculative, because there has been 
little litigation to test them in the courts.  As a practical 
matter, most postings, with a small number of notable exceptions, 
are not registered with the Copyright Office.  As such, to prevail 
in court, the copyright holder would need to show actual damages 
(see section 2.5).  Since most of these cases will result in 
little or no actual damage, no cases have been be brought; it's 
simply too expensive to sue for negligible damages.


3.9) Are fonts copyrighted?

First, let's distinguish between a font and a typeface.  A 
typeface is the scheme of letterforms (which is really what you're 
probably talking about), and the font is the computer file or 
program (or for that matter, a chunk of metal) which physically 
embodies the typeface.

A font may be the proper subject of copyright, but the generally 
accepted rule is that a typeface embodied in the font is not (see 
Eltra Corp. v. Ringer, 579 F.2d 294, 208 U.S.P.Q. 1 (4th Cir., 
1978), and the House of Representatives Report on the Copyright 
Law Revision, 94-1476, 94th Congress, 2d Session at 55 (1976), 
reprinted in 1978 U.S. Cong. and Admin. News 5659, 5668).

The letterforms themselves are not copyrightable under U.S. law as 
a typeface.  37 CFR 202.1(e).  A font is copyrightable if it adds 
some level of protectable expression to the typeface, but that 
protection does not extend to the underlying uncopyrightable 
typeface itself (see 17 U.S.C. 102(b)).

In essence, a font will be protectable only if it rises to the 
level of a computer program.  Truetype and other scalable fonts 
will therefore be protected as computer programs, a particular 
species of literary works.  Bitmapped fonts are not copyrightable, 
because in the opinion of the Copyright Office, the bitmap does 
not add the requisite level of originality to satisfy the 
requirement for copyright.

So, to summarize this point, a typeface is not copyrightable.  
While a scalable font might be copyrightable as a program, merely 
copied the uncopyrightable typeface, and creating your own font, 
either scalable or bitmapped, is probably not an infringement, 
assuming you did not copy any of the scalable font's code.

Two warnings:

First, even if typefaces can't be copyrighted, they can be 
patented under existing design patent laws.  35 U.S.C. 171.  
Copying a typeface and distributing such a font, while not a 
violation of copyright, might be an infringement of the patent.

Second, Congress has been considering design protection 
legislation for many years (most recently, the 102nd Congress' 
H.R. 1790) which, if passed, would protect typeface design.  If 
such a bill is enacted, the above opinion will be obsolete and 
incorrect.


3.10) What does "All Rights Reserved" mean?

One of the earliest international copyright treaties to which the 
U.S. was a member was the 1911 Buenos Aires Convention on Literary 
and Artistic Copyrights (see section 4.1 for more information).  
This treaty provided that, once copyright was obtained for a work 
in one signatory country, all other signatories accorded 
protection as well without requiring any further formalities 
(i.e., notice or registration), provided that the work contained a 
notice reserving these rights.  The typical notice complying with 
Buenos Aires was "All Rights Reserved."

As noted in section 4.1, the Buenos Aires Convention is 
essentially dead today, and the "All Rights Reserved" notice no 
longer serves much useful purpose.  It lives on mostly as a 
testament to inertia on the part of U.S. publishers.


3.11) What's the difference between a copyright and a patent?

This answer is included in both the Copyright and Patents FAQs.

There are basically five major legal differences between a 
copyright and a patent in the United States: subject matter 
protected, requirement for protection, when protection begins, 
duration, and infringement.  There's also a sixth practical one: 
cost.

Subject matter: A copyright covers "works of authorship," which 
essentially means literary, dramatic, and musical works, 
pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works, audio-visual works, 
sound recordings, pantomimes and choreography.  A patent covers an 
invention, which essentially means a new and non-obvious useful 
and functional feature of a product or process.

Requirement for protection: In order for a work to be copyrighted, 
it must be original and fixed in a tangible medium of expression; 
no formalities are required (see section 2.3).  In order for an 
invention to be patented, it must be novel (i.e., new), non-
obvious, and useful and a patent must be issued by the United 
States Patent and Trademark Office.
Start of protection: Copyright protection begins as soon as a work 
is created.  Patent protection does not begin until the patent is 
issued.

Duration: A copyright generally lasts for the life of the author, 
plus 50 years (see section 2.4).  In the U.S., a patent lasts for 
17 years from the date granted (in some nations, particularly 
Japan and most European nations, the duration is 20 years, and is 
measured from date of application).

Infringement: For a copyright to be infringed, the work itself 
must have actually been copied from (either wholly or to create a 
derivative work), distributed, performed, or displayed.  If a 
person other than the copyright owner independently comes up with 
the same or a similar work, there is no infringement.  In 
contrast, a patent confers a statutory monopoly that prevents 
anyone other than the patent holder from making, using, or selling 
the patented invention.  This is true even if that person 
independently invents the patented invention.

Cost: A copyright is essentially free.  Even if you want to 
register the copyright, the cost is only $20, and the paperwork is 
much less complicated than the 1040A short form for filing your 
income tax, well within the capabilities of the person registering 
the copyright.  A patent, on the other hand, is much more costly; 
there are fees to the Patent and Trademark Office, and the patent 
application process is much more complex, usually requiring the 
services of a registered patent agent (and perhaps a lawyer) to 
draft and prosecute the application, adding to the cost.

Philosophically, you can look at a copyright as protecting the 
author's rights that are inherent in the work; in contrast, a 
patent is a reward of a statutory monopoly to an inventor in 
exchange for providing the details of the invention to the public.


3.12) Why is there so little in this FAQ about patents?

Peter Treloar, the moderator of comp.patents, currently maintains 
a FAQ devoted exclusively to patents, and duplicating his effort 
here would be needlessly redundant.

The comp.patents FAQ is periodically posted to the Usenet 
comp.patents newsgroup.  A current copy is available by anonymous 
FTP from rtfm.mit.edu, in the /pub/Usenet/comp.patents/ directory, 
in the file "[ADMIN]_Comp.patents_FAQ."  If you do not have access 
to anonymous FTP, you may obtain it via the MIT mail server by 
sending an electronic mail message to mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu, 
consisting of a single line reading:

 send Usenet/comp.patents/[ADMIN]_Comp.patents_FAQ

in the body of the message.  The subject of the message is 
immaterial.


******************************************************************************

Archive-name: Copyright-FAQ/part4

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT COPYRIGHT (V. 1.1.1)
Part 4 - International aspects.

Copyright 1993 Terry Carroll
(c) 1993 Terry Carroll


This article is the fourth in a series of six articles that 
contains frequently asked questions (FAQ) with answers relating to 
copyright law, particularly that of the United States.  It is 
posted to the Usenet misc.legal, misc.legal.computing, and 
misc.int-property newsgroups monthly, on or near the 17th of each 
month.  The FAQ maintainer is currently investigating the 
requirements for posting the FAQ in the news.answers and related 
newsgroups.

This FAQ is available for anonymous FTP from rtfm.mit.edu 
[18.70.0.226], in directory /pub/usenet/news.answers/Copyright-
FAQ, files part1 - part6. If  you do not have direct access by 
FTP, you can obtain a copy via email: send a  message to mail-
server@rtfm.mit.edu with the following lines in it:

  send usenet/news.answers/Copyright-FAQ/part1
  send usenet/news.answers/Copyright-FAQ/part2
  send usenet/news.answers/Copyright-FAQ/part3
  send usenet/news.answers/Copyright-FAQ/part4
  send usenet/news.answers/Copyright-FAQ/part5
  send usenet/news.answers/Copyright-FAQ/part6
  quit


DISCLAIMER - PLEASE READ.

This article is Copyright 1993 by Terry Carroll.  It may be freely 
redistributed in its entirety provided that this copyright notice 
is not removed.  It may not be sold for profit or incorporated in 
commercial documents without the written permission of the 
copyright holder.  Permission is expressly granted for this 
document to be made available for file transfer from installations 
offering unrestricted anonymous file transfer on the Internet.  
Permission is further granted for this document to be made 
available for file transfer in the Legal Forum and Desktop 
Publishing Forum data libraries of Compuserve Information 
Services.  This article is provided as is without any express or 
implied warranty.  Nothing in this article represents the views of 
Amdahl Corporation, Santa Clara University, or the Santa Clara 
Computer and High Technology Law Journal.

While all information in this article is believed to be correct at 
the time of writing, this article is for educational purposes only 
and does not purport to provide legal advice.  If you require 
legal advice, you should consult with a legal practitioner 
licensed to practice in your jurisdiction.

Terry Carroll, the FAQ-maintainer, is a computer professional, and 
is currently (7/93) a student in his final year at Santa Clara 
University School of Law and Editor-in-Chief of the Santa Clara 
Computer and High Technology Law Journal.

If you have any additions, corrections, or suggestions for 
improvement to this FAQ, please send them to one of the following 
addresses, in order of preference:

  tjc50@juts.ccc.amdahl.com
  tcarroll@scuacc.scu.edu
  71550.133@compuserve.com

I will accept suggestions for questions to be added to the FAQ, 
but please be aware that I will be more receptive to questions 
that are accompanied by answers.  :-)


FAQ ORGANIZATION.

The following table indicates the contents of each of the parts of 
the FAQ.

  Part 1 - Introduction (including full table of contents).
  Part 2 - Copyright basics.
  Part 3 - Common miscellaneous questions.
  Part 4 - International aspects.
  Part 5 - Further copyright resources.
  Part 6 - Appendix: A note about legal citation form, or, "What's
           all this '17 U.S.C. 107' and '977 F.2d 1510' stuff?"

TABLE OF CONTENTS (for this part).

Part 4 - International aspects.

4.1) What international treaties exist governing copyright, or
     "What is this Berne Convention I keep hearing about?"
4.2) Is Freedonia a signatory to either the Berne Convention or to
     the Universal Copyright Convention?


4.1) What international treaties exist governing copyright, or 
"What is this Berne Convention I keep hearing about?"

The two major treaties governing copyright are the Berne 
Convention (U.S. Senate Treaty Doc. 99-27, KAV 2245, 1 B.D.I.E.L. 
715; also reprinted at 17 U.S.C.A. 104). and the Universal 
Copyright Convention (U.C.C.), (25 U.S.T. 1341, T.I.A.S. 7868, 1 
B.D.I.E.L. 813 (1971 Paris text); and 6 U.S.T. 2731, T.I.A.S. 
3324, 216 U.N.T.S. 132 (1952 Geneva text)).  (Note: the 
abbreviation U.C.C. to denote the Universal Copyright Convention 
should not be confused with the same abbreviation to denote the 
Uniform Commercial Code.)

The Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic 
Works was established in 1886 in Berne, Switzerland.  The text has 
been revised, and the current edition (and the one to which the 
United States and most other nations are a signatory) is the 1971 
Paris text.  The treaty is administered by the World Intellectual 
Property Organization (WIPO), an international organization 
headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland.

The Berne Convention has four main points:  National treatment, 
preclusion of formalities, minimum terms of protection, and 
minimum exclusive rights.

National treatment: Under Berne, an author's rights are respected 
in another country as though the author were a national (citizen) 
of that country (Art. 5(1)).  For example, works by U.S. authors 
are protected by French copyright in France, and vice versa, 
because both the U.S. and France are signatories to Berne.

Preclusion of formalities: Under Berne, copyright cannot be 
dependent on formalities such as registration or copyright notice 
(Art. 5(2)).  However, as noted in sections 2.5 and 2.7, this 
provision apparently does not prevent a member nation from taking 
adherence to formalities into account when determining what 
remedies apply.

Minimum terms of protection:  Under Berne, the minimum duration 
for copyright protection is the life of the author plus 50 years 
(Art. 7(1)).  Signatory nations may have provide longer durations 
if they so choose.

Minimum exclusive rights: Under Berne, a nation must provide for 
protection of six rights: translation (Art. 8(1)), reproduction 
(Art. 9(1)), public performance (Art. 11(1), and Art. 11ter), 
adaptation (Art. 12), paternity (Art. 6bis(1)) and integrity (Art. 
6bis(1)).  In certain of these areas, U.S. copyright law does not 
quite align with Berne.  For example, Berne requires that the 
paternity and integrity rights endure for the same term as the 
other rights (Art. 6bis(2)), while in the U.S., those rights 
terminate at the death of the author (17 U.S.C. 106A(e)).  The two 
have been reconciled by the premise that other sources of federal 
law, such as trademark, combined with the trademark, unfair 
competition, and defamation laws of the individual states, satisfy 
these requirements.

The Universal Copyright Convention was originally written in 1952 
in Geneva.  It became effective in 1955.  Like the Berne 
Convention, the text has been revised.  As with the Berne 
Convention, the most recent revision was in Paris in 1971.  The 
United States is party to both the 1952 Geneva text and the 1971 
Paris text.  The U.C.C. is administered by UNESCO, a United 
Nations agency.

Like Berne, the UCC requires national treatment for authors.  
However, the UCC differs from Berne in four material ways.  First, 
the UCC permits (but does not require) member states to require 
formalities such as copyright notice and registration as a 
condition of copyright (Art. III).  Second, copyright duration 
must be until least 25 years after the author's death or after the 
first publication, depending on whether a nation calculates 
duration based on the author's life or on publication (Art. IV).  
Third, the UCC's provisions on minimum rights are considerably 
less demanding than Berne's; the UCC demands recognition only of 
the rights to reproduce, adapt, and to publicly perform or 
broadcast the work.  Furthermore, the UCC expressly permits a 
nation to make exceptions to these rights, as long as the 
exceptions do not conflict with the spirit of the treaty (Art. 
IVbis).  Fourth and finally, the UCC recognizes the Berne 
Convention, and includes language so that, between two nations 
which are signatories to both Berne and the UCC, the Berne 
Convention controls and the UCC does not apply.  Furthermore, if a 
nation is a signatory to both conventions, and withdraws from 
Berne, it will not be protected by the UCC (Art. XVII and 
Appendix).  These provisions were added by nations fearing that 
creation of the UCC in 1955 would undermine the already existing 
Berne Convention.

The United States was the primary mover behind the creation of the 
U.C.C., because the formalities that existed in U.S. copyright law 
at that time did not permit adherence to Berne.  With the U.S. 
joining Berne, and consequently abandoning the formalities that 
were the driving force behind the U.C.C., the significance of the 
U.C.C. is waning.

In addition to Berne and the UCC, other copyright treaties include 
the 1971 Geneva Convention for the Protection of Producers of 
Phonograms Against Unauthorized Duplication of Their Phonograms 
(25 U.S.T. 309, T.I.A.S. 7808, 888 U.N.T.S. 67), the 1984 Brussels 
Convention Relating to the Distribution of Programme-Carrying 
Signals Transmitted by Satellite (T.I.A.S. 11078), and the 1911 
Buenos Aires Convention on Literary and Artistic Copyrights (38 
Stat. 1785, T.S. 593, 1 Bevans 758), which regulated copyright in 
the Americas.  The U.S. did not sign the Buenos Aires Convention 
when it was revised in 1948, and all of its signatories are now 
also signatories to either or both of Berne or the UCC.  The 
Buenos Aires Convention is now essentially a dead letter in 
international copyright law.

The texts of both versions of the U.C.C., the Buenos Aires 
Convention, and the Geneva Convention, are in Circular 38c, 
"International Copyright Conventions," available from the 
Copyright Office (see section 5.1).  Texts of the Berne Convention 
and the U.C.C. are available by anonymous FTP from the 
Multilaterals Project (see section 5.2).


4.2) Is Freedonia a signatory to either the Berne Convention or to 
the Universal Copyright Convention?

The answer in section 4.1 is generally almost always followed by a 
query as to whether a specific country has signed one or more of 
the conventions, so the following lists provide that information.

This data comes from the January 1992 edition (the most current) 
of Treaties In Force, with some supplemental information as noted.  
Each list indicates only that the nations listed have signed the 
convention.  It does not indicate whether a particular nation has 
also signed one or more of the optional protocols associated with 
the convention.  For example, Protocol 1 of the U.C.C. establishes 
that stateless persons are to be considered nationals of the 
nation within which they reside for purposes of the convention; a 
number of nations have signed the U.C.C., but have not signed that 
protocol.  If you really want to get down to that level of detail, 
consult a current edition of Treaties In Force.

If you're interested in knowing more detail about what copyright 
treaties are in effect between the U.S. and a particular nation, 
there is a table in the back of Treaties In Force containing an 
alphabetical list of countries, listing the copyright treaties 
(both unilateral and multilateral) to which it is a party with the 
U.S., including the dates on which each treaty entered into force.  
This table is also reproduced in the Copyright Office's Circular 
38a, "International Copyright Relations of the United States," 
contains  You can order it from the Copyright Office (see section 
5.1).  This circular is also included in Copyright Office 
information kit 100.  A similar table is included as an appendix 
in the Nimmer treatise (see section 5.1).

Note that, while the U.S.S.R. is listed as a signatory to the 1952 
Geneva text of the U.C.C., the status of the former soviet states 
is unclear at this time.  I've been told that Russia and some of 
the other newly independent states have announced that they will 
honor nearly all of the treaties of the former Soviet Union.  
Other states, for example, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, take 
the position that they were never legally part of the Soviet 
Union, and that treaties entered into by the Soviet Union are 
totally irrelevant to their international obligations.

In addition, I've been cited to an article entitled "Post-Soviet 
Law: The Case of Intellectual Property Law," by Peter Maggs (an 
attorney and professor at University of Illinois at Urbana-
Champaign) in the Harriman Institute Forum, Vol. 5, No. 3 (Nov. 
1991), pp. 3-9.  Professor Maggs reportedly concludes that, under 
international law, all newly independent states that were 
previously legitimate parts of the USSR (i.e., all except Estonia, 
Latvia, and Lithuania), remain bound by the UCC, although whether 
they actually have functional copyright protection is another 
matter altogether.

Thank you to <marlen@sovam.com> for contacting Professor Maggs and 
providing me with most of the information in the preceding two 
paragraphs.

In addition, in May 1993, the TASS news agency reported that 
Russia has enacted a new copyright law that is Berne-compliant, in 
preparation for an anticipated signing of the Berne Convention.

The following nations are signatories to the Berne Convention 
(1971 Paris text):  Argentina, Australia, Austria, the Bahamas, 
Barbados, Belgium, Benin (formerly Dahomey), Brazil, Bulgaria, 
Burkina Faso (formerly Upper Volta), Cameroon, Canada, the Central 
African Republic, Chad, Chile, Colombia, Congo, Costa Rica, Cote 
d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast), Cyprus, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Ecuador, 
Egypt, Fiji, Finland, France, Gabon, Germany, Ghana, Greece, 
Guinea, Holy See (Vatican City), Honduras, Hungary, Iceland, 
India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, 
Libya, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Madagascar (Malagasy Republic), 
Malawi, Malaysia, Mali, Malta, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mexico, 
Monaco, Morocco, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Niger, Norway, 
Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Rwanda, 
Senegal, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon), 
Suriname, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, Togo, Trinidad and 
Tobago, Tunisia, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the United States, 
Uruguay, Venezuela, Yugoslavia, Zaire, and Zimbabwe.  According to 
U.S. State Department Dispatches published since January 1992, 
additional nations to sign Berne include Gambia (Dec. 12, 1992), 
China (July 10, 1992) and Kenya (March 11, 1993).

The following nations are signatories to the Universal Copyright 
Convention (1971 Paris text):  Algeria, Australia, Austria, the 
Bahamas, Bangladesh, Barbados, Bolivia, Brazil, Bulgaria, 
Cameroon, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, 
the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, France, Germany, 
Grenada, Guinea, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Korea, Mexico, 
Monaco, Morocco, the Netherlands, Norway, Panama, Poland, 
Portugal, St. Lucia, St, Vincent and the Grenadines, Senegal, 
Seychelles, Spain, Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon), Sweden, Trinidad 
and Tobago, the United Kingdom, the United States, Vatican City, 
and Yugoslavia.

The following nations are signatories to the Universal Copyright 
Convention (1952 Geneva text):  Algeria, Andorra, Argentina, 
Australia, Austria, the Bahamas, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belgium, 
Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Cameroon, Canada, 
Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Cyprus, Czechoslovakia, 
Denmark, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Fiji, 
Finland, France, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Grenada, Guatemala, 
Guinea, Guyana, Haiti, Holy See, Hungary, Iceland, India, Ireland, 
Israel, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Korea, Laos, Lebanon, Liberia, 
Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malawi, Malta, Mauritius, Mexico, 
Monaco, Morocco, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Nigeria, 
Norway, Pakistan, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Poland, Portugal, St. 
Lucia, St, Vincent and the Grenadines, Senegal, Seychelles, Spain, 
Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon), Sweden, Switzerland, Tunisia, the 
Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics, the United Kingdom, the 
United States, Venezuela, Yugoslavia, and Zambia.



******************************************************************************

Archive-name: Copyright-FAQ/part5

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT COPYRIGHT (V. 1.1.1)
Part 5 - Further copyright resources.

Copyright 1993 Terry Carroll
(c) 1993 Terry Carroll


This article is the fifth in a series of six articles that 
contains frequently asked questions (FAQ) with answers relating to 
copyright law, particularly that of the United States.  It is 
posted to the Usenet misc.legal, misc.legal.computing, and 
misc.int-property newsgroups monthly, on or near the 17th of each 
month.  The FAQ maintainer is currently investigating the 
requirements for posting the FAQ in the news.answers and related 
newsgroups.

This FAQ is available for anonymous FTP from rtfm.mit.edu 
[18.70.0.226], in directory /pub/usenet/news.answers/Copyright-
FAQ, files part1 - part6. If  you do not have direct access by 
FTP, you can obtain a copy via email: send a  message to mail-
server@rtfm.mit.edu with the following lines in it:

  send usenet/news.answers/Copyright-FAQ/part1
  send usenet/news.answers/Copyright-FAQ/part2
  send usenet/news.answers/Copyright-FAQ/part3
  send usenet/news.answers/Copyright-FAQ/part4
  send usenet/news.answers/Copyright-FAQ/part5
  send usenet/news.answers/Copyright-FAQ/part6
  quit


DISCLAIMER - PLEASE READ.

This article is Copyright 1993 by Terry Carroll.  It may be freely 
redistributed in its entirety provided that this copyright notice 
is not removed.  It may not be sold for profit or incorporated in 
commercial documents without the written permission of the 
copyright holder.  Permission is expressly granted for this 
document to be made available for file transfer from installations 
offering unrestricted anonymous file transfer on the Internet.  
Permission is further granted for this document to be made 
available for file transfer in the Legal Forum and Desktop 
Publishing Forum data libraries of Compuserve Information 
Services.  This article is provided as is without any express or 
implied warranty.  Nothing in this article represents the views of 
Amdahl Corporation, Santa Clara University, or the Santa Clara 
Computer and High Technology Law Journal.

While all information in this article is believed to be correct at 
the time of writing, this article is for educational purposes only 
and does not purport to provide legal advice.  If you require 
legal advice, you should consult with a legal practitioner 
licensed to practice in your jurisdiction.

Terry Carroll, the FAQ-maintainer, is a computer professional, and 
is currently (7/93) a student in his final year at Santa Clara 
University School of Law and Editor-in-Chief of the Santa Clara 
Computer and High Technology Law Journal.

If you have any additions, corrections, or suggestions for 
improvement to this FAQ, please send them to one of the following 
addresses, in order of preference:

  tjc50@juts.ccc.amdahl.com
  tcarroll@scuacc.scu.edu
  71550.133@compuserve.com

I will accept suggestions for questions to be added to the FAQ, 
but please be aware that I will be more receptive to questions 
that are accompanied by answers.  :-)


FAQ ORGANIZATION.

The following table indicates the contents of each of the parts of 
the FAQ.

  Part 1 - Introduction (including full table of contents).
  Part 2 - Copyright basics.
  Part 3 - Common miscellaneous questions.
  Part 4 - International aspects.
  Part 5 - Further copyright resources.
  Part 6 - Appendix: A note about legal citation form, or, "What's
           all this '17 U.S.C. 107' and '977 F.2d 1510' stuff?"

TABLE OF CONTENTS (for this part).

Part 5 - Further copyright resources.

5.1) Where can I get more information on copyright?
5.2) What materials related to copyright are available on the
     Internet?


5.1) Where can I get more information on copyright?

The U.S. Copyright Office General Information Package 118 provides 
general information on copyright law.  Copyright Office Circular 
2, "Publications on Copyright," provides a complete list of 
publications relating to copyright which are available from the 
Copyright Office.

These materials and many others may be ordered (generally free of 
charge) by calling the Copyright Office Hotline at 202-707-9100 
and leaving a voice mail message.  Call the Hotline only if you 
already know the number of the publication you want.  If you don't 
know the publication number, the Copyright Office maintains a 
prerecorded information line at 202-707-3000.  This line provides 
an automatic voice mail attendant that provides information 
according to responses presented from a touch-tone keypad.  Much 
of the information in section 2.6 was obtained from this 
information line.

The book "Intellectual Property in a Nutshell," by Arthur R. 
Miller of Harvard Law School and Michael H. Davis of Cleveland-
Marshall College of Law (West Publishing, 1990, ISBN 0-314-75738-
4), provides a fine introduction not only to copyright law, but 
also to patent and trademark law.  It's typically available from 
college or law school bookstores for about $15.

The authoritative secondary source for information on copyright is 
the five-volume loose-leaf opus, "Nimmer on Copyright."  
Originally written and maintained by the late Professor Melvin 
Nimmer and now maintained by his son, David Nimmer, this is the 
most respected source of copyright information, short of the texts 
of the statutes, regulations, and cases themselves.  Nimmer is 
frequently cited by courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, as 
an authority to justify their opinions.  I've been surprised to 
find short essays on even the most obscure copyright questions 
(e.g., whether a food recipe is subject to copyright).  I heartily 
recommend it as an initial source for research.  It is, however, a 
bit dense for casual reading.

Several readers have recommended L. Ray Patterson & Stanley W. 
Lindberg, "The Nature Of Copyright" (1991), ISBNs 0-8203-1362-9 
(paperback) and 0-8203-1347-5 (hardback).  Patterson and Stanley 
reportedly argue for a broad interpretation of a user's rights in 
a work, and a more narrow interpretation of the right of the 
copyright holder.  Be aware that this interpretation may or may 
not match the law of your jurisdiction.

In preparing this FAQ, I consulted the casebook that was used in 
my Copyright class in Fall of 1991 at Santa Clara University 
School of Law: Joyce, Patry, Leaffer and Jaszi, "Copyright Law, 
Second Edition" (1991), ISBN 0-8205-0115-8.  Like most casebooks, 
it contains edited versions of most of the landmark decisions in 
the law, including most of the cases that are cited in this FAQ.  
It's not for beginners, but it's well-written, and often contains 
illustrations of the works being discussed in the cases (a very 
useful feature, since copyright questions often turn on questions 
of similarity or originality that can only be determined by seeing 
the work).  The book's best features are a good review of the 
history of copyright, an excellent description of the 
international treaties covering copyright, and a detailed 
bibliography at the end of each chapter.  An unfortunate feature 
is the index, which is not the best organized, and often provides 
incorrect page numbers (perhaps because of the editors' hurry to 
include the Feist case that had been decided only a few months 
before the book was in stores).

Nolo Press publishes two books on copyright for the lay reader: 
"The Copyright Handbook: How to Protect and Use Written Works," by 
Stephen Fishman, ISBN 0-87337-130-5 ($24.95) and "How to Copyright 
Software," by M.J. Salone, ISBN 0-87337-102-X ($39.95).  My 
knowledge of these books is limited to the entries in the catalog, 
but Nolo Press generally enjoys an excellent reputation for 
publishing accurate and understandable books on law.  Nolo's 
telephone number is (510) 549-1976.


5.2) What materials related to copyright are available on the 
Internet?

The following is a list of materials relating to copyright that I 
have been able to verify are available on the Internet.

STATUTES:

 - FATTY.LAW.CORNELL.EDU -

Most portions of the current copyright law have been made 
available by Cornell University.  To review the statute, enter the 
command

  telnet fatty.law.cornell.edu 8210

and sign on with a user ID of "www."  No password is necessary.  
This will allow you to use the World Wide Web software to navigate 
the copyright law.  It also includes access to the Berne 
Convention.

TREATIES:

 - THE MULTILATERALS PROJECT -

The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy maintains the 
Multilaterals Project, an anonymous ftp site with a number of 
multilateral treaties, at jade.tufts.edu.  This archive includes 
versions of both the Berne Convention and the Universal Copyright 
Convention.  The treaties are in directory /pub/diplomacy.  The 
following files are of particular interest:

  README - A one-page description of the Multilaterals Project, by 
Peter Stott, its director.

  INDEX - An index of all the treaties and other documents 
available from the project.

  BH006-1971.txt - The 1971 Paris text of the Berne Convention for 
the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works.

  UNTS11850.txt - The 1967 Stockholm text of the Berne Convention 
for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works.  The United 
States is not a party to the this text.

  UNTS13444.txt - The 1971 Paris text of the Universal Copyright 
Convention.

In addition, The Berne Convention may also be viewed via telnet to 
fatty.law.cornell.edu as noted above, under "STATUTES."

OTHER RESOURCES:

 - THE CNI-COPYRIGHT MAILING LIST -

The Coalition for Networked Information (CNI) sponsors CNI-
Copyright, an Internet mailing list devoted to copyright issues.  
To join, send a message to LISTSERV@CNI.ORG with a single line of 
text in the body that says:

 SUBSCRIBE CNI-COPYRIGHT your name

If that doesn't work, send a message to CRAIG@CNI.ORG (Craig 
Summerhill) and ask him to manually add you to the list.  After 
joining, messages may be sent to the list at CNI-
COPYRIGHT@CNI.ORG.

Archives of the CNI-COPYRIGHT list are available and may be 
searched online via telnet.  To access them, telnet to a.cni.org, 
login with the ID "brsuser" (no password is required), and follow 
the instructions presented.  CNI-COPYRIGHT archives are in the 
COPY database.

CNI is a not for profit corporation and is a joint project of the
Association of Research Libraries (ARL), CAUSE, and EDUCOM.  It 
promotes the creation of and access to information resources in 
networked environments in order to enrich scholarship and to 
enhance intellectual productivity.

 - COPYRIGHT GUIDE FOR PHOTOGRAPHERS - 

FTP site moink.nmsu.edu (128.123.4.58) has a repository, 
/pub/rec.photo, for files related to photography.  Among the files 
contained in this directory is the Copyright Guide For 
Photographers, produced by the American Society of Media 
Photographers, Inc.  While the Guide is particularly oriented 
towards photographers, much of the information it provides will be 
of use to anyone interested in copyright.  The file 
asmp-copyright-guide is an ASCII version of this document.  A TeX 
version is also available, in asmp-copyright-TeX.tar.z.

 - USENET NEWSGROUPS -

There are several newsgroups that from time to time discuss 
copyright issues.

misc.int-property: Discussions of intellectual property; 
copyright, patent, trademark and trade secrecy, and their 
alternatives.

misc.legal.computing: Legal issues related to computers.  
Copyright and patent issues predominate.

misc.legal: the main newsgroup covering legal issues, including 
copyright law.

comp.patents: Moderated newsgroup discussing issues related to 
computers and patents, including software patents.  The newsgroup 
is moderated by patents-request@cs.su.oz.au (Peter Treloar).  
Please note that the focus of this group is more on patent law 
than copyright law.

comp.software.licensing: Trends, practices, and techniques in 
software licensing.

gnu.misc.discuss: Discussions in this group frequently include 
issues of software patents, copyright, and "copyleft."




******************************************************************************

Archive-name: Copyright-FAQ/part6

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT COPYRIGHT (V. 1.1.1)
Part 6 - Appendix: A note about legal citation form, or, "What's 
all this '17 U.S.C. 107' and '977 F.2d 1510' stuff?"

Copyright 1993 Terry Carroll
(c) 1993 Terry Carroll


This article is the last in a series of six articles that contains 
frequently asked questions (FAQ) with answers relating to 
copyright law, particularly that of the United States.  It is 
posted to the Usenet misc.legal, misc.legal.computing, and 
misc.int-property newsgroups monthly, on or near the 17th of each 
month.  The FAQ maintainer is currently investigating the 
requirements for posting the FAQ in the news.answers and related 
newsgroups.

This FAQ is available for anonymous FTP from rtfm.mit.edu 
[18.70.0.226], in directory /pub/usenet/news.answers/Copyright-
FAQ, files part1 - part6. If  you do not have direct access by 
FTP, you can obtain a copy via email: send a  message to mail-
server@rtfm.mit.edu with the following lines in it:

  send usenet/news.answers/Copyright-FAQ/part1
  send usenet/news.answers/Copyright-FAQ/part2
  send usenet/news.answers/Copyright-FAQ/part3
  send usenet/news.answers/Copyright-FAQ/part4
  send usenet/news.answers/Copyright-FAQ/part5
  send usenet/news.answers/Copyright-FAQ/part6
  quit


DISCLAIMER - PLEASE READ.

This article is Copyright 1993 by Terry Carroll.  It may be freely 
redistributed in its entirety provided that this copyright notice 
is not removed.  It may not be sold for profit or incorporated in 
commercial documents without the written permission of the 
copyright holder.  Permission is expressly granted for this 
document to be made available for file transfer from installations 
offering unrestricted anonymous file transfer on the Internet.  
Permission is further granted for this document to be made 
available for file transfer in the Legal Forum and Desktop 
Publishing Forum data libraries of Compuserve Information 
Services.  This article is provided as is without any express or 
implied warranty.  Nothing in this article represents the views of 
Amdahl Corporation, Santa Clara University, or the Santa Clara 
Computer and High Technology Law Journal.

While all information in this article is believed to be correct at 
the time of writing, this article is for educational purposes only 
and does not purport to provide legal advice.  If you require 
legal advice, you should consult with a legal practitioner 
licensed to practice in your jurisdiction.

Terry Carroll, the FAQ-maintainer, is a computer professional, and 
is currently (7/93) a student in his final year at Santa Clara 
University School of Law and Editor-in-Chief of the Santa Clara 
Computer and High Technology Law Journal.

If you have any additions, corrections, or suggestions for 
improvement to this FAQ, please send them to one of the following 
addresses, in order of preference:

  tjc50@juts.ccc.amdahl.com
  tcarroll@scuacc.scu.edu
  71550.133@compuserve.com

I will accept suggestions for questions to be added to the FAQ, 
but please be aware that I will be more receptive to questions 
that are accompanied by answers.  :-)


FAQ ORGANIZATION.

The following table indicates the contents of each of the parts of 
the FAQ.

  Part 1 - Introduction (including full table of contents).
  Part 2 - Copyright basics.
  Part 3 - Common miscellaneous questions.
  Part 4 - International aspects.
  Part 5 - Further copyright resources.
  Part 6 - Appendix: A note about legal citation form, or, "What's
           all this '17 U.S.C. 107' and '977 F.2d 1510' stuff?"

APPENDIX: A note about legal citation form, or, "What's all this 
'17 U.S.C. 107' and.'977 F.2d 1510' stuff?"

Citations to legal materials can be intimidating when first 
encountered.  The purpose of this entry is to provide a short 
description of the legal citations used in this article to reduce 
that intimidation.  It's not intended as a be-all and end-all to 
legal research, but just a way of letting you find the sources 
that are cited in this FAQ if you head to a law library.  If you 
don't care about looking up any of the legal materials cited in 
this FAQ, skip this entry.

CASES:  Cases are reported in books called "reporters."  A 
reporter generally consists of a series of bound volumes.  Often 
when the volume number becomes too high, the reporter publisher 
starts over with volume 1, designating the new set as a "second 
series," "third series," etc., as appropriate.

Because copyright is almost entirely a matter of federal law, most 
(if not all) cases referenced in this FAQ are federal cases.  The 
most common reporters (with their abbreviations shown in 
parentheses) are:

United States Reports (U.S.) - This is the official reporter for 
cases from the United States Supreme Court.  This is the standard 
reporter reference provided when referencing a Supreme Court case.  
If a case is especially recent, it may not yet be published in the 
U.S. Reports, in which case, the proper reference is to one of the 
unofficial reporters (either the Supreme Court Reporter or the 
Lawyers' Edition).

The unofficial reporters are also cross-indexed by the U.S. 
Report's volume and page numbers, so that given a citation to a 
case in the U.S. Reports, you should be able to also find it in 
either of the unofficial reporters.  The converse is not true: if, 
for example, you have a citation to the Supreme Court Reporter, 
you will not be able to find the case in the U.S. Reports.  All 
law libraries carry a set of books called Shepard's Citations, 
which will permit you to cross-reference this way.  See your law 
librarian for help using these intimidating-looking books.

Supreme Court Reporter (S.Ct.) - This is an unofficial reporter 
published by West Publishing.  It too reports cases from the 
United States Supreme Court.  The advantages of this reporter is 
that it comes out more quickly than the official reporter, and 
also includes West's headnotes and case summaries.

United States Supreme Court Reporter, Lawyers' Edition (L.Ed.) - 
This is another unofficial reporter, similar to the Supreme Court 
Reporter, but published by the Lawyers Cooperative Publishing Co.  
In addition to the advantages offered by the Supreme Court 
Reporter, it often includes short essays (called annotations) on 
points of law dealt with in a case.

Federal Reporter (F.) - This is an unofficial reporter, published 
by West, that reports cases from the various United States Courts 
of Appeal.  There is no official reporter for these cases, and the 
Federal Reporter de facto fills that role.

Federal Supplement (F.Supp) - This is an unofficial reporter, 
published by West, that reports cases from the various United 
States District Courts (that is, from the courts of "original 
jurisdiction," where trials are originally held and often appealed 
to the higher courts).  There is no official reporter for these 
cases, and the Federal Supplement de facto fills that role.

United States Patent Quarterly (U.S.P.Q.) - This is a topical 
reporting service from the Bureau of National Affairs (BNA).  It 
reports cases from various courts, but because it's a "topical 
reporter," it only reports cases dealing with a certain topic, in 
this case, intellectual property (despite its name, it's not 
limited to patent cases).

This is only a very small subset of the reporters and services 
that report cases.  For a more complete list, see "The Bluebook: A 
Uniform System of Citation, 15th Edition," in particular, tables 
T.1 (United States Jurisdictions), T.2 (Foreign Jurisdictions) and 
T.16 (Services).

The standard way of referencing a case is in the format:

   case-name volume-number reporter [series, if applicable] page-
number (jurisdiction, date)

"Jurisdiction" is omitted for U.S. Supreme Court cases; the fact 
that the reporter is U.S., S.Ct., or L.Ed. is enough to show that 
it's a U.S. Supreme Court case.  If two page numbers are included, 
the first page number is the page on which the case begins, and 
the second is the page that contains the particular point being 
referenced (called a "pinpoint cite" or "jump cite").

Here is an example of a case citation:

   Sega v. Accolade, 977 F.2d 1510, 1520 (9th Cir., 1993).

From this citation, we know that the parties in the case are Sega 
and Accolade; the case is reported in volume 977 (second series) 
of the Federal Reporter; the case begins on page 1510, but the 
particular point being referenced is on page 1520; the case was 
decided in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, in 1993.

STATUTES:  A federal statute is generally enacted as a "public 
law," and is assigned a P.L. number.  This number indicates the 
Congress in which it was enacted, and the law number within the 
Congress.  For example, the Copyright Act of 1976 was the 553rd 
law enacted by the 94th Congress, and so is officially catalogued 
as P.L. 94-553.  If you know the P.L. number of a law, you can 
generally find it in the United States Code Congressional and 
Administrative News (U.S.C.C.A.N.), or in Statutes at Large (see 
below) easily.

Once enacted, Public Laws are catalogued in a official statute 
list called "Statutes At Large."  Citations to Statutes at Large 
("Stat.") are similar to that for cases: volume, service 
identifier, and page number.  For example, the Copyright Act of 
1976 may be cited as 90 Stat 2541, meaning that it is in Statutes 
At Large, volume 90, page 2541.

However, most statutes, as enacted, are not very useful to read.  
They're generally written in a style saying that a prior act is 
amended by adding certain words or phrases, and deleting others.  
Without seeing the context of the modified portion, you really 
can't see what the statute actually does.

This problem is handled by statutory codifications.  In 
particular, most U.S. laws are organized into "titles" of the U.S. 
Code (U.S.C.).  Each title governs a particular area of law.  For 
example, Title 17 deals with copyright law.  These codifications 
are periodically updated by taking the original laws and applying 
the modifications made by subsequent laws so that the result is 
the text of the law as it is in effect today.  In practice, almost 
every citation to law (including the majority of those in this 
FAQ) are to the U.S.C., not to the individual public laws.

A typical citation to the U.S.C. looks like this: 17 U.S.C. 107.  
This is a reference to U.S. Code, Title 17, section 107 (which 
happens to be the fair use provisions of copyright).

While there is an official U.S. Code published by the U.S. 
government, there are two commercially published versions of the 
code, too.  These are West Publishing's U.S. Code Annotated 
(U.S.C.A.) and Lawyers Cooperative Publishing Co.'s U.S. Code 
Service (U.S.C.S.).  In practice, because of the private versions 
are frequently updated, and contain extras such as cross-
references to other statutes, cases, law review articles and other 
resources, they are used far more frequently than the official 
U.S.C.

REGULATIONS:  In addition to statutes passed by Congress, law also 
comes in the form of regulations promulgated by the various 
federal agencies.  In the case of copyright, the regulations we're 
most interested in are those promulgated by the Copyright Office.

Regulations become effective by publication of the regulation in 
the Federal Register (Fed. Reg.).  Like statutes, they are then 
periodically codified, in this case in the Code of Federal 
Regulations (C.F.R.).  Usually, regulations are cited to the 
C.F.R. for the same reason that statutes are usually cited to the
U.S.C.  However, the promulgation documents as published in the 
Federal Register include not only the regulation itself, but 
usually information justifying or explaining the regulation, so 
occasionally the Fed. Reg. citation is used.

Here are some examples of citations to a regulation, in this case, 
to a regulation preventing registration of a copyright in a blank 
form:

45 Fed. Reg. 63297, 63299 (Sep. 24, 1980).   (Federal Register 
volume 45, beginning on page 63297, with a pinpoint cite to page 
63299.)

37 C.F.R. 202.1(c) (1992).   (the same regulation, as codified in 
the C.F.R.)

TREATIES:  Treaties are compiled in several treaty sources.  If 
the U.S. is a party, the treaty will generally be found in United 
States Treaties and Other International Agreements (U.S.T.) or 
Treaties and Other International Acts Series (T.I.A.S.).  In some 
cases (especially with older treaties signed before the State 
Department took on their publication), they'll be in Statutes at 
Large; in some case (especially with important newer treaties not 
yet published by the State Department), they'll be in the private 
versions of the U.S. Code.

If the U.S. is not a party, the treaty won't be in the above 
sources.  It might be found the United Nations Treaty Series 
(U.N.T.S.) (or the League of Nations Treaty Series (L.N.T.S.) for 
older treaties), the Pan-American Treaty Series (Pan-Am. T.S.) or 
European Treaty Series (Europ. T.S.).

In addition, treaties may be found in many unofficial 
compilations, e.g., International Legal Materials (I.L.M.), Basic 
Documents of International Economic Law (B.D.I.E.L.), Bevans, and 
Kavass (KAV).

This is only a small list of treaty sources.  For more sources, 
see "The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation, 15th Edition," in 
particular, table T.4 (Treaty Sources).

Generally, treaties are cited in the standard way: volume number, 
reporter, and page number (e.g., the Berne Convention is 1 
B.D.I.E.L. 715).  A few series (e.g., T.I.A.S. and Europ. T.S.) 
are cited by treaty number within the series, with no volume 
number specified.

The document "Treaties In Force" lists all the treaties to which 
the U.S. is a party, and it lists all the other nations that are 
also a party.  This is a good source to find out if a particular 
nation is a signatory to a particular treaty.

One final note on treaties:  In section 4.1, many citations to 
treaties look like typographical errors: "Art. 6bis" and "Art. 
11ter," for example.  Well, these aren't typos.  "bis," "ter, and 
"quater" are suffixes derived from the French words for "second," 
"third," and "fourth," respectively  These suffixes are used when 
a treaty has already been written, and a revision will insert a 
new article between already existing articles.  This avoids the 
need to renumber the treaty articles, and so provides a 
consistency between multiple revisions of the treaties.  For 
example, Article 6bis of the Berne Convention is an article that 
was inserted between Article 6 and Article 7 when the convention 
text was revised.  (This is also the reason why some modems are 
advertised as supporting the V.32 protocol, while others support 
V.32bis, in case you've ever wondered.)




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