We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.
Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.
332
17
unless amended, enforce: contracts dreamed up by lawyers as early as 1919 (ten years after the 1909 Act) on the off-chance that some time in the distant future Congress might extend the term, and if and when that occurred, maybe, just maybe, Congress would let them get away with boilerplate language assigning publishers all future rights, even though those rights had not been paid for.
The 1964 Revision Bills
In 1964, the first revision bills were introduced. ^^ Section 20(a) of the bills adopted, for new works, the term of life of the author plus 50 years, or, where the work was not created by an individual, 75 years from first publication or 100 years from creation, whichever occurred first. ^* For old act works, the bills kept the durational structure of the 1909 Act: an original term of 28 years plus a renewal term of 28 more years (if timely applied for) , but as in the 1963 preliminary draft, an extra 19 years was tacked on to the renewal term for a total of 75 years: 28+28+19.
Again, as in the 1963 draft, there were termination of transfer provisions both for assignments executed before the effective date of the bills (governing, therefore, the extra 19 years) and for assignments executed after the effective date (governing, mostly, but not exclusively works with a life of the author plus 50 years term) .
For assignments of "old act" works, the author or his heirs could terminate the extra 19 years beginning in the first year of the extra 19 years (i.e., in year 57 of the copyright) if they had served a written notice on the assignee one year before the effective date of the termination and recorded a copy of the notice with the Copyright Office. ^^ For assignments of "new act" works, the assignment could be terminated at any time beginning 35 years after the execution of the assignment, but notice of termination had to be made two years before the effective date.^^
For both termination of transfers of "old" and "new" works, the draft provided that a licensed derivative work prepared before
^^ S. 3008, H.R. 11947, H.R. 12354, 88th Cong., 2d Sess, (1964) .
^^ The bill also provided for a uniform, federal system by protecting all unpublished works.
^^ As with the 1963 draft, there was no "window" period within which the notice had to be filed.
^^ For new act (but not old act) transfers, there were exclusions from the termination right for transfers by will and works made for hire.