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 be construed, at the outset, thus poses a substantial challenge to the notion that the courts in copyright cases may simply begin and end their inquiry by parsing the statute.

Indeed, the legislative record reveals a number of instances in which Congress in the 1976 Act intended to defer to prior judicial practice, rather than providing new rules that would override what the courts had previously done. The areas in which Congress deferred to prior judicial practice include the core statutory requirement of originality and the reach of protection for depictions of useful articles. Similarly, although the Copyright Act (unlike, say, the Patent Act ) omits any express provisions making persons other than direct infringers liable for copyright infringement, the courts have consistently applied common-law principles of secondary liability in the copyright context. This judicial development of secondary liability for