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Section 8 of the statute now in effect includes a saving clause intended to make clear that the copyright protection of a private work is not affected if the work is published by the Government. There is no need to restate this principle explicitly in the context of section 105: there is nothing in section 105 that would relieve the Government of its obligation to secure permission in order to publish a copyrighted work, and publication or other use by the Government of a private work could not affect its copyright protection in any way.
The intent of section 105 is to restrict the prohibition against Government copyright to works written by employees of the United States Government within the scope of their official duties. In accordance with the objectives of the Postal Reorganization Act of 1970, this section does not apply to works created by employees of the United States Postal Service. The privilege of securing copyright in its publications does not extend to restrictions on the use of postage—stamps on mail carried by the Postal Service.
SECTION 106. EXCLUSIVE RIGHTS IN COPYRIGHTED WORKS
General scope of copyright
The five fundamental rights that the bill gives to copyright owners—the exclusive rights of reproduction, adaptation, publication, performance, and display—are stated generally in section 106. These exclusive rights, which comprise the so-called “bundle of rights” that is a copyright, are cumulative and may overlap in some cases. Each of the live enumerated rights may be subdivided indefinitely and, as discussed below in connection with section 201, each subdivision of an exclusive right may be owned and enforced separately.
The approach of the bill is to set forth the copyright owner’s exclusive rights in broad terms in section 106, and then to provide various limitations, qualifications, or exemptions in the 11 sections that follow. Thus, everything in section 106 is made “subject to sections 107 through 117,” and must be read in conjunction with those provisions.
The exclusive rights accorded to a copyright owner under section 106 are “to do and to authorize” any of the activities specified in the five numbered clauses. Use of the phrase “to authorize” is intended to avoid any questions as to the liability of contributory infringers. For example, a person who lawfully acquires an authorized copy of a motion picture would be an infringer if he engages in the business of renting it to others for purposes of unauthorized public performance.
Rights of reproduction, adaptation, and publication
The first three clauses of section 106, which cover all rights under a copyright except those of performance and display, extend to every kind of copyrighted work. The exclusive rights encompassed by these clauses, though closely related, are independent; they can generally be characterized as rights of copying, recording, adaptation, and publishing. A single act of infringement may violate all of these rights at once, as where a published reproduces, adapts, and sells copies of a person’s copyrighted work as part of a publishing venture. Infringement takes place when any one of the rights is violated: where, for example, a printer reproduces copies without selling them or a retailer sells copies without having anything to do with their reproduction.
