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Posted by: Steve Andreadis
The following is a guest blog post by Marilyn Creswell, Librarian-in-Residence at the U.S. Copyright Office. In most conversations, a register is usually a list, and a registrar is usually a person who keeps lists. The U.S. Copyright Office is a rare example of a Register being the person who keeps a register.1 The origin …
Posted in: historical, international, Register of Copyrights, WIPO
Posted by: Nicole McNew Chen
Zitkála-Šá was a prolific writer, political activist, and musician, credited as the first Native American to write an opera, The Sun Dance Opera. However, despite her contributions, Zitkála-Šá does not appear on the copyright records for the work.
Posted in: Copyright, Copyright Lore, historical, Native Americans, Uncategorized, virtual card catalog, Women's History
Posted by: Alison Hall
The Gee's Bend quilters have a rich creative history. Through educational outreach from various organizations, the women of Gee's Bend have learned about copyright and their intellectual property rights.
Posted in: Copyright, Copyright Lore, engage your creativity, historical, Uncategorized, Women's History
Posted by: Holland Gormley
The following is a guest post by Annette James, a program coordinator at the U.S. Copyright Office. As I reflect upon the 2021 Black History Month theme, The Black Family: Representation, Identity, and Diversity, the word family captures a wealth of emotions. It calls up memories of childhood and retrospection on lessons learned. It brings …
Posted in: Copyright, copyright in education, historical, music, Uncategorized
Posted by: Anandashankar Mazumdar
On January 1, a new raft of creative works of expression entered the public domain in the United States. The term of copyright has ended for works published or registered in 1925, which now join pre-1924 works already in the public domain and available for use by everyone without restrictions. Expiration of copyright term is …
Posted in: Copyright, historical, music
Posted by: Holland Gormley
The following is a guest post by Marilyn Creswell, 2020 Librarian-in-Residence for the U.S. Copyright Office. Sojourner Truth was a preacher, abolitionist, and suffragist. A lesser known fact is that she was also a copyright innovator. Truth was born in New York around 1797. Enslaved during her youth and early adulthood, she eventually gained freedom …
Posted in: Copyright, education, historical, Uncategorized
Posted by: Steve Andreadis
The following is a guest post by Mary Daniel, summer 2020 law clerk in the Office of Policy and International Affairs. Mary is a third year at the University of Southern California Gould School of Law. The Halloween season is the time of year for horror movies and scary stories. However, sometimes it’s the horror …
Posted in: Copyright, fair use, film, historical, literature
Posted by: Alison Hall
Today is Constitution Day, which is a day of great celebration in copyright. In addition to all of the other treasures in the Constitution, of which there are many, our country's founding document includes the foundation for U.S. copyright law. In article 1, section 8, clause 8, the Constitution states that Congress has the power to enact laws to "promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries." And Congress obliged, passing the first federal copyright law in 1790, updating it throughout the years to address the changing times.
Posted in: Copyright, historical, legislation
Posted by: Anandashankar Mazumdar
As the Copyright Office celebrates its 150th birthday, we can look back more than 240 years through the history of copyright protections in the United States to see how the law has changed in response to changing technologies and economics. The authors of the U.S. Constitution believed that copyright was important enough to explicitly grant …
Posted in: Copyright, court cases, historical, photography, Supreme Court