Copyright Act of 1790

thumb|right|300px|The Copyright Act of 1790 in the Columbian Centinel

The Copyright Act of 1790 was the first federal copyright act to be instituted in the United States, though most of the states had passed various legislation securing copyrights in the years immediately following the Revolutionary War. The stated object of the act was the "encouragement of learning," and it achieved this by securing authors the "sole right and liberty of printing, reprinting, publishing and vending" the copies of their "maps, charts, and books" for a term of 14 years, with the right to renew for one additional 14-year term should the copyright holder still be alive.

Early developments

The 1710 British Statute of Anne did not apply to the American colonies. Only three private copyright acts were passed in the colonies prior to 1783. But the Continental Congress had no power under the Articles of Confederation to authorize a federal copyright law; By 1786, the only state that had not implemented a copyright law was Delaware. Seven states modeled their law on the Statute of Anne and the Continental Congress' resolution, providing two fourteen-year terms. The remaining five states used non-renewable terms, which lasted fourteen, twenty or twenty-one years. The Copyright Clause authorized Congress "to promote the progress of science and useful arts" with utilitarian regimes for copyright and patent.

Both houses of Congress pursued a copyright law more pointedly during 1790's second session. They responded to President George Washington's first 1790 State of the Union Address, in which he urged Congress to pass legislation designed for "the promotion of Science and Literature" so as to better educate the public. This led to the Patent Act of 1790 and, shortly thereafter, the Copyright Act of 1790.

House of Representatives

The scope of what works would be covered by the law's exclusivity was contended in the House. When he reintroduced the matter, Aedanus Burke wanted to establish a first law about copyright regarding "literary property", but Alexander White called for the expansion of copyright beyond writings on the behalf of Jedidiah Morse, who believed unauthorized copying of his American Geography would hurt his business.

The need to re-raise the copyright issue, among other items left unresolved at the end of the first session, required the House to clarify some order of business problems over whether or not they could reopen unfinished business from a previous session. That settled, the House established a drafting committee for the law on February 1, chaired by Abraham Baldwin.

The act

The bill was signed into law on May 31, 1790 by George Washington and published in its entirety throughout the country shortly after. The act granted copyright for a term of "fourteen years from the time of recording the title thereof" and one optional renewal. The act also did not mention paintings or drawings, which were not covered until the enactment of the Copyright Act of 1870.

Provisions

The British Statute of Anne was used as a basis. The 1790 Act only offered a 14-year term for previously published works.

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Geographic reach

The Copyright Act of 1790 applied exclusively to citizens of the United States;

Federal law

At the time, works only received protection under federal statutory copyright if the statutory formalities, such as a proper copyright notice, were satisfied. If this was not the case, the work immediately entered into the public domain. In 1834 the Supreme Court ruled in Wheaton v. Peters, a case similar to the British Donaldson v Beckett of 1774, that although the author of an unpublished work had a common law right to control the first publication of that work, the author did not have a common law right to control reproduction following the first publication of the work. extending copyright restriction to etchings and, for the first time, requiring notice of copyright registration on copies of the works. The act did not specify a consequence of failing to include that notice; however, the federal case Ewer v. Coxe established that the failure to include notice invalidated a copyright.

The act was also amended on February 15, 1819, to expand the jurisdiction of circuit courts (analogous to today's district courts) to allow them to hear cases on patents and copyrights.

References

External links

Full Text of the 1790 Act
Image of 1790 Act
The Statute of Anne