Sunday, March 12, 2006  Brain Teaser  Here's a brain teaser
involving notice under the 1909 Act and the 1994 Uruguay Round
Agreements Act, amending Section 104A. The question is the
impact, under Section 9 the 1909 Act, of a failure to affix a
copyright notice to copies of works of foreign origin,
distributed overseas. Did this result in loss of U.S. copyright?
In the original draft of Section 9 (codified in 1947 as Section
10), it was proposed that "any person entitled thereto by this
Act may secure copyright for his work by publication thereof in
the United States with the notice of copyright required by this
Act." (Emphasis added.) In the final draft, however, the
italicized words were transferred to the next clause: "and such
notice shall be affixed to each copy thereof published or
offered for sale in the United States by authority of the
copyright proprietor." This change made it clear that a work
duly copyrighted in the United States did not lose protection
merely because there might be an edition sub