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For this category of work, the 1976 Act adopted a basic term of life of the author plus 50 years. Where the work is made for hire, anonymous, or pseudonymous the term is 75 years from first publication or 100 years from creation, whichever occurs first.
Works Unpublished and Unregistered on January 1, 1978: Section 303
This category encompasses works formerly under perpetual state common law copyright. The 1976 Act preempts that state protection and substitutes a somewhat complicated system. The minimum term of protection for these works is December 31, 2002, but if the work is published before that date, the term is extended until December 31, 2027. Alternatively, if a longer term is possible under the life plus 50 regime, that regime is applied.
Works Pxiblished Before January 1, 1978
These works were formerly governed by the 1909 Act's 28+28 year term: 28 years from first publication, with another 28 year renewal term if a timely renewal was filed. The 1976 Act essentially incorporated the 1909 Act's term structure into the 1976 Act for these works, but added on an additional 19 years to the renewal term for a possible total of 75 years (28+28+19). Where a work was in its first term on January 1, 1978, a timely renewal application still had to be filed.'* If the renewal application was timely filed, the author was granted a 47 year renewal term. If the work was in its renewal term on January 1, 1978, it was automatically granted a 47 year term.
Termination of Transfers
At an August 1964 meeting at the Copyright Office with the private sector on the first revision bills, an in-house lawyer for Time, Inc. expressed an opinion that the termination of transfer provisions would not help authors because they were too complicated and would instead "realistically" only benefit private sector attorneys "who are going to make a lot of money out of it."'^ This comment was made, interestingly, before the provisions became appreciably more onerous for authors in the 1965 bills. Evidence being compiled by the Copyright Office for this hearing bears out the prediction.
'* This requirement was finally abandoned in the Automatic Renewal Act of 1992, Act of June 26, 1992, Pub. L. No. 102-307 (title I), 102d Cong., 2d Sess., 106 Stat. 264, but that act only governs works that were first published between 1964 and 1977.
'^ See Copyright Law Revision Part 5: 1964 Revision Bill with Discussions and Comments. 89th Cong., 1st Sess. 166 (House Comm. Print 1965) (remarks of E. Gabriel Perle) .