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1 1 (September 18, 2023)

handle is hein.crs/govemwm0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Congressional_______ SaResearch Service D.C. Circuit Finds Mandatory Copyright Deposit Requirement an Unconstitutional Taking September 18, 2023 U.S. copyright law has long required copyright owners to send the U.S. Copyright Office one or two copies of their works, which may be used to build the collections of the Library of Congress. (Both the Copyright Office and Congressional Research Service are part of the Library of Congress, which employs the author of this Sidebar.) The so-called deposit requirement was included in the first Copyright Act of 1790 and has taken different forms across more than 200 years of U.S. copyright law history. Under current law, there are two distinct deposit requirements: (1) mandatory deposit under 17 U.S.C. § 407, which applies to many copyrighted works published (i.e., offered for sale to the public) in the United States; and (2) permissive deposit under 17 U.S.C. § 408, which is part of the optional copyright registration process. In Valancourt Books v. Garland, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit held that Section 407's mandatory deposit requirement was unconstitutional as applied to the unregistered works of a print-on-demand book publisher. The D.C. Circuit reasoned that because deposit is no longer a condition for maintaining copyright, the Copyright Office's demand for physical copies of books amounted to a taking of private property without compensation, in violation of the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment. This Legal Sidebar reviews the factual and legal background underlying Valancourt Books, analyzes the D.C. Circuit's ruling, and surveys selected issues that Congress may consider in response to the decision. Legal Background A Brief History of Copyright Formalities Copyright applies to creative works such as books, music, movies, television, fine arts, and other original works of authorship. Copyright grants the authors of such works a set of exclusive legal rights in their creations for a period of time. Congressional Research Service https://crsreports.congress.gov LSB11043 CRS Legal Sidebar Prepared for Members and Committees of Congress

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