On 9/16/98, Larry Helfer <larry.helfer[_at_]lls.edu> wrote:
>
> Bob Stock <bstock[_at_]ucla.edu> wrote:
> >
> > Final question, largely unrelated to the preceding ones, but I figured
> > I'd throw it in. Does publication require numerosity? If, instead of
> > sending an e-mail, I send the same truly brilliant content by regular
> > mail, is that a publication? What if I send it to two people? More
> > than two?
>
> I think your last question is answered by the House Report on the 1976
> Act, which indicates that although the statute itself uses the terms
> "copies" and "phonorecords" in the plural, "a work is 'published' if
> one or more copies or phonorecords embodying it are distributed to the
> public." HR Rep. No. 91-1476 at 138 (emphasis added).
I'm not sure this is as helpful as you think. As you say, the 101 definition is in the plural:
"Publication" is the distribution of copies or phonorecords of a work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending."
But what the report says (more completely) is:
"Under the definition in section 101, a work is 'published' if one or more copies or phonorecords embodying it are distributed to the public that is, generally to persons under no explicit or implicit restrictions with respect to disclosure of its contents without regard to the manner in which the copies or phonorecords changed hands."
When a report mischaracterizes the statute it is reporting on, I am left with an uncomfortable feeling. The report says the definition says something other than what it *actually* says. I don't read the report as clarifying the statutory language, but contradicting it. If they wanted to say "one or more" in the statute, why didn't they just say so? Or why make it plural at all? Why not just say the distribution of a copy or phonorecord?
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