FALSE USE OF COPYRIGHT NOTICE The present copyright law (17 U.S.C. sec. 105) makes the following provision to prevent the misuse of the copyright notice: Any person who, with fraudulent intent, shall insert or impress any notice of copyright required by this title, or words of the same purport, in or upon any uncopyrighted article, or with fraudulent intent shall remove or alter the copyright notice upon any article duly copyrighted shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, punishable by a fine of not less than $100 and not more than $1,000. Any person who shall knowingly issue or sell any article bearing a notice of United States copyright which has not been copyrighted in this country, or who shall knowingly import any article bearing such notice or words of the same purport, which has not been copyrighted in this country, shall be liable to a fine of $100. The purpose of this study is to examine the history, interpretation, and utility of this section with a view to considering whether a similar provision, in substantially the present form or with modifications, should be incorporated in a revised copyright law. Regardless of whether, in a new law, copyright notice is required or merely permissive, fraudulent notices would of course be possible. 1. LEGISLATIVE HISTORY 1 The Act of April 29, 1802, which was the first Federal statute to require a notice in copies of copyrighted works, also contained a provision imposing a penalty for the use of a false copyright notice.2 Some such provision has been in the copyright law ever since.3 The statutes prior to 1909 imposed a penalty of $100 recoverable in a qui tam actions with one-half of the penalty going to the person bringing the action and the other half to the U.S. Government. Prior to 1897 this penalty was imposed only upon a person who inserted or impressed a copyright notice on copies of a work for which he had not obtained a copyright. The act of March 3, 1897, extended the same penalty to a person who knowingly issued, sold, or imported articles bearing a false notice of U.S. copyright. The latter act also specified that the penalty for insertion of a false notice was applicable whether the article was subject to copyright or not. These provisions were modified in the act of 1909 to read as they still do in the present law (17 U.S.C. sec. 105, quoted above). Fraudulent intent was made an essential element of the offense of inserting a notice in an uncopyrighted article; the removal or alteration of the notice in a copyrighted article with fraudulent intent was made an offense; and the penalty for these offenses was to be a fine of from $100 12 STAT. 171, c. 36, § 1 (1802). The first Federal copyright statute enacted in 1790 required a notice to be published in newspapers: 1 STAT. 124, c. 15, § 3. 22 STAT. 172, c. 36, § 4 (1802). 14 STAT. 438, c. 16, § 11 (1831); 16 STAT. 214, c. 230, § 98 (1870); REV. STAT. 1873, § 4963; 26 STAT. 1109, c. 565, § 6 (1891); 29 STAT. 694, c. 392, § 1 (1897); 35 ŠTAT. 1075, c. 320, §§ 29, 30 (1909). § 29, 30, 35 STAT. 1075 (1909). 56579-60- -9 |