2 · Highlights of Copyright Amendments in URAA
Eligibility for Restoration
Copyright in eligible works was restored January 1, 1996. To be eligible, the work must meet all the following requirements:
- At the time the work was created, at least one author (or rightholder in the case of a sound recording) must have been a national or domiciliary of an eligible country. An eligible country is a country, other than the United States, that is a member of the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works (Berne Convention), is a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO), or is subject to a presidential proclamation that extends restored copyright protection to that country on the basis of reciprocal treatment to the works of U.S. nationals or domiciliaries;
- The work is not in the public domain in its source country through expiration of the term of protection;
- The work is in the public domain in the United States because the work did not comply with formalities imposed at any time by the U.S. law,4 the work lacked subject matter protection in the United States in the case of sound recordings fixed before February 15, 1972, or the work lacked national eligibility in the United States; and
- If published, the work must have first been published in an eligible country and must not have been published in the United States during the 30-day period following its first publication in that eligible country.
Term of Copyright
The copyright in any work in which copyright is restored will last for the remainder of the term of copyright that the work would have enjoyed if the work had never entered the public domain in the United States.
Generally, the U.S. copyright term for works published before January 1, 1978, lasts for 95 years from the year of first publication. Although sound recordings fixed before 1972 were not then protected by federal copyright, those sound recordings will receive the remainder of the term they would have received had they been protected by such copyright when published. For example, a sound recording published in 1925 will be protected until 2020. For works published on or after January 1, 1978, the term of copyright is the life of the author plus 70 years. For example:
- A French short story that was first published without copyright notice in 1935 will be treated as if it had both been published with a proper notice and properly renewed, meaning that its restored copyright will expire on December 31, 2030 (95 years after the U.S. copyright would have come into existence).
- A Chinese play from 1983 will be protected until December 31 of the seventieth year after the year in which its author dies.
- A Mexican sound recording first published in Mexico in 1965 will be protected until December 21, 2060.
For further information concerning the length of copyright protection in the United States, request Circular 15a, Duration of Copyright.
Restoration Is Automatic
Eligible copyrights are restored automatically and no further steps need to be taken to make a restored copyright fully enforceable against any party other than a reliance party.
Notice of Intent to Enforce (NIE)
Notification of Reliance Parties
Although copyright is restored automatically in eligible works, the URAA directs the owner of a restored work to notify reliance parties if the owner of the rights in a restored work plans to enforce those rights. A reliance party is typically a business or individual who, relying on the public domain status of a work, was already using the work prior to the date of enactment of the URAA on December 8, 1994.5
The URAA authorizes the owner of a right in a restored work either
- to provide actual notice by notifying a reliance party directly, or
- to provide constructive notice through the filing of a Notice of Intent to Enforce (NIE) a Restored Copyright with the Copyright Office.
The URAA further directs the Copyright Office to publish in the Federal Register, the U.S. government's publication for official agency notices, a list identifying restored works and their ownership where NIEs have been filed with the Office. For inspection and copying by the public, the Copyright Office maintains a list identifying all NIEs.
Date to File NIEs
Eligibility on January 1, 1996 · The owner of a restored work may file an NIE directly with a reliance party at any time after the date of restoration. If the owner wished to file an NIE with the Copyright Office, the owner of a work whose source country as of January 1, 1996, was a member of the Berne Convention or the WTO must have filed an NIE
