Copyright (current project page)

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At the 2024 Annual Meeting, the membership voted to approve Tentative Draft No. 5, which includes portions of Chapter 2 (Scope of Protection), Chapter 6 (Copyright Rights and Limitations), Chapter 7 (Copyright Infringement), Chapter 8 (Secondary Liability), Chapter 10 (Safe Harbors, Copyright Protection Systems, and Copyright Management Information), and Chapter 11 (Procedural Issues and Relationship to Other Bodies of Law).

At the 2023 Annual Meeting, the membership voted to approve Tentative Draft No. 4, which contains portions of Chapter 4, Copyright Formalities; Chapter 5, Duration of Copyright; Chapter 6, Copyright Rights and Limitations; and Chapter 7, Copyright Infringement.

At the 2022 Annual Meeting, the following actions were taken on Tentative Draft No. 3:

• A motion to amend § 40 was withdrawn.
• A motion to delete § 41, Comment e, was withdrawn after the Reporters agreed to remove the Comment from the material for approval, pending release of the U.S. Copyright Office’s report on online publication.
• A motion to amend § 46, as revised before the Meeting, was withdrawn after the Reporters agreed to clarify Comment a as discussed with the movant.
• A motion to delete all the black letter in § 54 and move its content to the Comments to § 28 on ownership failed upon a vote by the membership.
• A motion to remove § 15 from inclusion in the Boskey Motion did not pass. 

The membership voted to approve Tentative Draft No. 3, which includes §§ 10, 15, Comment g to § 20, §§ 27-29, 40-41, and 46-48, 50-51, 53-54, 56-57, 59, and 9.01-9.06.

The following are details of the actions taken at the 2021 Annual Meeting:

• A motion to amend § 8 to add a new subsection (c) was accepted by the Reporters and passed by the membership.
• A motion to amend § 8, Comments d and g, failed.
• A motion to amend § 9 failed.
• A motion to amend § 22 failed.
• A motion to amend § 25 to add a new subsection (f) was accepted by the Reporters with a modification and passed by the membership. The new language reads:

(f) When the owner of copyright in a contribution to a collective work authorizes the contribution’s inclusion in the collective work, “[i]n the absence of an express transfer of the copyright or of any rights under it, the owner of copyright in the collective work is presumed to have acquired only the privilege of reproducing and distributing the contribution as part of that particular collective work, any revision of that collective work, and any later collective work in the same series.”

• A motion to amend subsection (a) of § 25 failed.
• Time expired before §§ 27-29 were discussed.
• The membership voted to approve §§ 1-9, 11, 13, 14, 16, 19, and 20-26 of the Tentative Draft.

All draft approvals are subject to the discussion at the meeting and usual editorial prerogative.

In the below video, Pierre N. Leval (2nd Circuit) discusses the Restatement of the Law, Copyright. Leval joined the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in 1993. Before that, he served on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York since 1977. He serves as an Adviser for this Restatement.

Questions answered in the video include:

• What is the goal of The American Law Institute’s Restatement of the Law?
• What is the role of the project Reporter and Associate Reporters?
• Why is ALI working on a Copyright Law Restatement?
• Why has the Copyright Law Restatement raised concerns?
• What is a specific example of an area where the Restatement may provide clarification?

* Preliminary Drafts and Council Drafts are available only to participants and the Council. Discussion Drafts and Tentative Drafts are available to the public after the Annual Meeting.

** Once it is approved by the Membership at an Annual Meeting, a Tentative Draft or Proposed Final Draft represents the most current statement of The American Law Institute's position on the subject and may be cited in opinions or briefs until the official text is published.

*** Chapter numbers are those used in the most recent draft or in the latest projected overall table of contents and may not correspond to the chapter numbers used in earlier drafts.