Page:Copyright Office Compendium 3rd Edition - Full.djvu/1001

, Third Edition PART II THE COPYRIGHT RENEWAL ACT OF 1992

2103 Intent, Purpose, and Impact on Renewal Registration

The Copyright Renewal Act of 1992 substantially amended the current law with regard to renewal registration. Pub. L. No. 102-307, 106 Stat. 164, effective June 26, 1992. Among other issues, it sought to bring registration requirements for works still in their original term in 1992 [i.e., works published, or registered as unpublished works, from 1964 through 1977] more in line with registration requirements for works governed by the current copyright law. For such works, the act made original and renewal registration optional for statutory protection to extend into the renewal term. However, to encourage authors and proprietors to continue to register their works for the original term and make timely renewal registrations, it provided certain benefits for timely renewal registration. See Section 2107.

The act also provided for registration at any time while a work is under copyright, including the renewal term. This means a renewal claim can be registered at any time from the last year of the original term through the renewal term, regardless of whether a registration was made for the original term before that term expired.

Finally, to make the renewal registration record more useful to the public, the act provided within the renewal registration record itself a more efficient means of identifying the current owner of the renewal copyright at the time of registration where renewal title may have changed from its point of initial vesting.

2104 Affected Works

The Copyright Renewal Act of 1992 affects works that were still in their original term of copyright at the time it took effect on June 26, 1992, i.e., works published or registered as unpublished works from January 1, 1964 through December 31, 1977.

NOTE: The act does not apply to such works when they were first published with a year date in the copyright notice that is earlier than 1964. For information on how an antedated year date in the copyright notice affects the term of copyright, see Section 2115.2[b].

2105 Registration for the Original Term Is Not Required

Before the Copyright Renewal Act of 1992, registration for the original term had to be made before that term expired and it had to be completed before a renewal claim could be registered. A copyright claim for the original term could be filed simultaneously with a renewal claim, but the renewal claim was held until the original registration was completed so the renewal registration could cite the original registration record.

Exceptions: Registration for the original term was not required for U.C.C. works (although a timely renewal registration had to be made to secure copyright for the renewal term]. Also, an original registration for a contribution first published in a collection was not required to register a renewal claim in the contribution.

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