Re: Looking for cites for a proposition

From: Lemley, Mark <mlemley[_at_]msmail.law.utexas.edu>
Date: Fri, 11 Nov 94 10:04:00 CST

---

>From: cni-copyright
>To: Multiple recipients of list
>Subject: Re: Looking for cites for a proposition
>Date: Thu, Nov 10, 1994 10:11PM
>
>Jordan Breslow writes:
>
>" 'Modern' copyright law came into existence in 1570, by an act of
>Parliament called the Statute of Anne. It was written with books and
>pictures in mind. In recent history, courts considered that copyright
>law only applied to things humans could read without the aid of a
>machine. The issue ended with the Software Act of 1980." ("Copyright
>Law Flexes Its Muscles, Innovation Digest, October 1986, by Jordan J.
>Breslow."

Actually, the 1909 Act put to rest the question of whether copyright applied to things that could be read only with the aid of a machine. That act defined fixation broadly in order to reverse the Supreme Court's decision in *White Music,* which had held that player piano rolls were not fixed in a tangible medium of expression because people couldn't read them directly.

Mark Lemley
Assistant Professor
University of Texas School of Law
mlemley[_at_]msmail.law.utexas.edu Received on Fri Nov 11 1994 - 16:04:31 GMT