| Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 |
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| Part of the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works of 1886 provided that copyrighted works be protected for the duration of the author's life plus no less than 50 years. The European Union extended the 50 year protection to 70 years in 1993, and the United States did the same on October 28, 1998, with the signing of the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA). CTEA allows works still under copyright in the United States to be granted copyright protection for the duration of the author's life plus 70 years for individual works and corporate works. Works published before January 1, 1978, are protected for up to 95 years. Works-for-hire, anonymous, or pseudonymous works are protected for 95 years after publication or 120 years after creation under CTEA. The Act is named after the now-deceased songwriter and singer Sonny Bono, who had lobbied for copyright extension. CTEA is also known as the "Mickey Mouse Act" because one of the biggest proponents of the bill was the Disney company. CTEA does not retroactively apply to works for which copyright protection had expired as of October 28, 1998.More... |
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| Copyright Protection |
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| Copyright protects original works of authorship including literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic works, such as poetry, novels, movies, songs, computer software, and architecture. Copyright does not protect facts, ideas, systems, or methods of operation, although it may protect the way these things are expressed. More... |
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| Copyright and World Trade |
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| The Trade Act of 1974 authorized the President to ''take all appropriate and feasible action within his power'' in order to combat unjustifiable, unreasonable, or discriminatory acts of foreign countries. The Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act of 1988, authorized the United States Trade Representative (USTR) to use trade measures as leverage to obtain adequate protection abroad for United States intellectual property. This provision was further modified by the Uruguay Round Agreements Act. In addition to regular proceedings, Congress added an additional device in the Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act of 1988, which provided for the identification of countries that denied adequate protection or market access to United States intellectual property rights. The Uruguay Round Agreements Act updated the provision to confront the new world trade order. Additionally, the North American Free Trade Agreement added two intellectual property provisions.More... |
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| Federal Unfair Competition Law |
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| The law of unfair competition is primarily comprised of torts that cause an economic injury to a business through a deceptive or wrongful business practice. Unfair competition consists of two broad categories. First, the term "unfair competition" is sometimes used to refer only to those torts that are meant to confuse consumers as to the source of the product. The other category, "unfair trade practices," comprises all other forms of unfair competition. In this context, unfair competition does not refer to the economic harms involving monopolies and antitrust legislation. More... |
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| Economic Espionage Act of 1996 |
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| The Economic Espionage Act of 1996 (EEA) provided a broader definition of what constitutes a "trade secret" and what constitutes trade secret theft, effectively replacing the 1948 Trade Secrets Act, which was limited to prosecution of federal employees. The EEA also was passed so as to serve as a universal trade secret theft act, overriding various trade secret acts instituted by individual states.More... |
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