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October 6, 2026

50 Years Later: Founders Reflect on the Copyright Act of 1976

by Eileen Bramlet

Fifty years after the enactment of the Copyright Act of 1976, which took place on October 19, 1976, and became effective on January 1, 1978, the law remains a steadfast foundation of copyright protection in the United States. The Act comprehensively overhauled U.S. law by making copyright protection automatic once a work is fixed in a tangible medium. It also extended copyright duration to the author’s life plus 50 years, codified what became known as the fair use doctrine, and provided a unified federal copyright system.

While Congress has amended the Act many times to address evolving technologies and other developments, its core framework continues to support millions of creators, copyright owners, businesses, educators, and consumers.

To mark the Copyright Act’s half-century anniversary, the Copyright Alliance recently assembled a distinguished group of 13 former government officials, creative industry leaders, attorneys, and others who were directly involved in the drafting, negotiation, and enactment of the legislation. They joined us for a virtual roundtable to discuss the law’s history and consider the lessons that it offers for the future.

Where Were Our Roundtable Participants Fifty Years Ago?

Many of the participants hadn’t seen or spoken to one another in years, but it was readily apparent that they loved seeing each other again and walking down memory lane. The roundtable began with each participant introducing themselves and explaining where they worked during their primary involvement with the 1976 Act:

  • Fritz Attaway: Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), which was the precursor to MPA.
  • Bob Hadl: Wilner & Scheiner.
  • Jon Baumgarten: U.S. Copyright Office.
  • Tim Boggs: House Judiciary Committee staff.
  • Bob Garrett: Arnold & Porter.
  • Mike Klipper: Counsel to Senator Charles Mathias.
  • Fred Koenigsberg: American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP).
  • Bruce Lehman: Counsel to Representative Robert Kastenmeier.
  • Art Levine: U.S. Copyright Office and CONTU.
  • Ralph Oman: Counsel to Senator Hugh Scott of Pennsylvania, and then Senator Charles Mathias of Maryland.
  • Cary Sherman: Arnold & Porter.
  • Carol Risher: CONTU and the Association of American Publishers (AAP).
  • Judith Saffer: American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP).

Here is more information about the roundtable participants’ careers.

Outlining the Purpose of the Roundtable

After everyone briefly introduced themselves, Copyright Alliance CEO Keith Kupferschmid started off by explaining that the purpose of the discussion was not simply to revisit legislative history, but to preserve the firsthand stories of the people who lived it. “We wanted to [bring together] the people who were there on the ground during the development of the ‘76 Act … and hear their stories, maybe learn some things that aren’t written in the history books,” he said.

This goal helped to shape a conversation that explored not only the history of the Act, but also the relationships, compromises, and shared commitment that made possible one of the most significant pieces of intellectual property legislation in American history.

Common Threads Throughout the Roundtable

Several common topics were raised during the roundtable with a number of participants noting the following:

  • Many participants said they were not copyright experts when they first began working on the 1976 Copyright Act during their early careers. Instead, they entered the field somewhat unexpectedly and learned about copyright law through legislative and policy work, as well as from their peers and mentors.
  • Barbara Ringer was, and still is, widely recognized as a central figure in the copyright industry, whose leadership, expertise, and diligence were said to be invaluable to the passage and implementation of the Act. Art Levine said about accepting a position working for Ringer, “This is somebody who I wanted to be associated with, and I’ve never regretted that decision.” And Bruce Lehman described her as “the consummate civil servant.”
  • In addition to Ringer, many of the roundtable participants said that “there are too many important figures to count” in terms of those who contributed to the Copyright Act. However, a good number of them, who sadly are no longer with us, are listed on this document, which also details their contributions. Throughout the roundtable, the contributions and hard work of these individuals arose frequently.
  • Compromise drove Copyright Act legislation and many of its provisions reflect the delicate negotiations that took place among creators, publishers, broadcasters, cable operators, educators, and many other stakeholders. Rather than viewing the Act as a single legislative accomplishment, roundtable participants described it as “a collaborative effort that evolved.” Every provision represented careful balancing of competing interests, and every compromise reflected the understanding that copyright law needed to encourage creativity while adapting to technology and innovation.
  • Implementation and negotiation of the Act were both very significant and took a great deal of time. In fact, roundtable participants emphasized the enormous amount of work involved well before the Act took effect on January 1, 1978.

Although the Copyright Act bears the year 1976 in its name, roundtable participants emphasized that the legislation was the result of two decades of study, negotiation, and revision. So, the effort began long before it was signed into law, requiring countless meetings, reports, hearings, negotiations, and draft bills.

There were also other considerations that delayed the Act from being considered sooner, including important non-copyright issues that the U.S. faced at the time. According to Jon Baumgarten, “the Nixon impeachment inquiry, civil rights legislation, [and] all the other problems that Congress was dealing with [in the 1970s]” resulted in it taking longer to consider the Copyright Act.

Baumgarten further noted that one reason the Copyright Act of 1976 ultimately became law was that Congress deliberately deferred several contentious issues rather than allowing them to derail the overall revision. He explained that lawmakers “put aside a number of topics” so that the long-awaited revision could finally pass. Specifically, according to many of the participants:

  • Industrial design protection was removed from the bill because the industries were split.
  • U.S. adherence to the Berne Convention was postponed. Although some stakeholders wanted the U.S. to join Berne as part of the 1976 revision, the drafters didn’t want to see the bill fail again.
  • Elimination of the manufacturing clause was also postponed because of certain trade issues.
  • Public performance rights in sound recordings were deferred rather than resolved in the 1976 Act.
  • Moral rights were delayed until later legislation, including the Visual Artists Rights Act (VARA), and its inclusion in the 1976 Act might have killed the bill at the time.
  • Cable industry considerations complicated things as the cable industry itself became increasingly more powerful with each passing year that the bill was considered.

The roundtable conversation underscored how interconnected the copyright community has been over the past five decades, where members know one another through multiple connections. Numerous participants had negotiated against one another, worked together in government, appeared on opposite sides of legislative debates, and ultimately collaborated on reforms.

While disagreements sometimes evolved into lively discussions, mutual respect became a defining characteristic of the community, both then and now. According to Judy Saffer, “we all worked together to get various things passed through Congress as best we could.”

Fred Koenigsberg light-heartedly described his fellow roundtable participants as “the greatest assembly of copyright experts since Barbara Ringer ate dinner alone,” a comment that captured both the caliber of the participants and Ringer’s stature within the community.

And Cary Sherman said that working with many of the roundtable participants, despite frequently finding themselves on opposite sides of policy debates in the 1970s, was “one of the greatest assets of my career.”

As evidenced by comments from Koenigsberg, Sherman, and other participants, this tightknit community had mutual respect for one another, regardless of which side of the issues they were on. Additionally, talking about the copyright community also brought into focus the role of the U.S. Copyright Office in getting the Copyright Act passed.

According to roundtable participants, the U.S. Copyright Office was indispensable throughout the Act’s revision process. They explained that the Copyright Office served as an honest broker for negotiating the Act, bringing together stakeholders with competing interests and facilitating issues when needed to move the legislation forward.

Bruce Lehman reflected on the Copyright Office’s biggest contribution being “a unique ability to bring people together, mediate difficult discussions,” and create the conditions necessary for legislative compromise.

Although artificial intelligence (AI) was not yet on the horizon during legislative debates surrounding the 1976 Act, roundtable participants repeatedly noted that technology has always been one of the principal forces shaping copyright law.

When Congress revised copyright law during the 1960s and 1970s, policymakers considered cable television, photocopying, educational copying, sound recordings, computer software, and other “new technologies” that were transforming how creative works were produced, distributed, and protected.

Today’s debates surrounding generative AI may feel unprecedented, but roundtable participants observed that every generation believes its tech challenges are unique while history reminds us otherwise.

In fact, Ralph Oman noted that a big reason that the Act has been successful is it established enduring principles rather than attempting to predict every future technology. He asserted that later tech developments, including digital technologies, “may have tested the Act but did not undermine its basic framework.”

Bruce Lehman agreed, saying that the Act was drafted in such a way as to avoid there being a vacuum when it comes to certain technologies so that unwanted business practices don’t develop from such a void.

After discussing artificial intelligence and the development of other new technologies over the years, the roundtable participants transitioned to discussing fair use.

The roundtable discussion reflects a strong consensus among many of those who helped draft or implement the 1976 Copyright Act that fair use was intended to codify existing case law, not to become the expansive doctrine it is today. While participants differed on whether the four fair use factors were a good idea to include, most agree that modern judicial interpretations have taken fair use far beyond what Congress ever envisioned.

Bruce Lehman, one of the roundtable’s strongest critics of how fair use is being interpreted by courts today, argued that the transformative use doctrine has fundamentally “weakened copyright” and poses even greater dangers in the AI era. He further noted that, “… the whole transformative use doctrine, in the digital age, has basically … become a barn door through which you can drive anything to be fair use.”

Jon Baumgarten offered both historical context and criticism of how fair use has evolved, stating, “The Copyright Office did not think a one-sentence or a silent treatment of fair use … made any sense.” So, instead, the Office adopted what he described as “a so-called distillation of factors” to include in the Act, essentially summarizing existing judicial decisions rather than creating a new doctrine. Baumgarten also agreed with fellow roundtable participants that today’s fair use doctrine would have surprised nearly everyone involved in drafting the Act, saying, “I think what’s happened to fair use would be a big surprise to all back then.”

Carol Risher defended the inclusion and value of fair use in the Act. She explained that she regularly used it to help educate the public. “Something as simple as [the fair use factors] made it possible for me to lead people toward respecting copyright.” Acknowledging that today’s fair use debates are very different, Risher emphasized that, “… at the time, we did strike a blow for copyright protection [through fair use].”

It became very apparent during this conversation that how fair use is understood today differs significantly from the expectations they had at the time, which ultimately shifted the conversation toward the lessons they’ve learned and how one may be able to use that knowledge during today’s AI era.

Lessons for the AI Era

In addition to focusing on history, the roundtable conversation also turned toward the future. Many participants observed that the principles underlying the Copyright Act remain remarkably durable even as technologies evolve. Copyright continues to incentivize creativity, promote knowledge sharing, and support the industries that depend on creative expression.

Further, several participants suggested that the history of the 1976 Act offers three important lessons for current debates surrounding artificial intelligence:

  1. Meaningful copyright reform requires patience as evidenced by the fact that the 1976 Act emerged only after two decades of discussion among stakeholders.
  2. Successful legislation depends on bringing diverse interests together rather than allowing policy to develop solely through litigation.
  3. Tech innovation and copyright protection should not be viewed as competing objectives. Throughout history, copyright has adapted to tech progress while continuing to protect creators and encourage innovation. Such lessons remain just as relevant today.

Looking Ahead

As the Copyright Act enters its second half-century, the creative economy appears dramatically different than it did in 1976. Digital distribution has replaced physical media for many works. Streaming has transformed how entertainment is consumed. Global markets connect creators with audiences around the world. And AI presents both unprecedented opportunities and complex legal challenges. Yet the roundtable conversation made one point abundantly clear: the core principles embodied in the Copyright Act of 1976 remain as important today as they were fifty years ago, continuing to provide a strong legal framework even as new technologies develop.

Thank you to everyone who participated in the Copyright Alliance’s roundtable celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Copyright Act of 1976. We learned so much from you and your invaluable work and appreciate all that you did to make the Copyright Act a reality.

To stay up to date with the latest news in artificial intelligence (AI) and copyright, sign up for our AI Copyright Alert. You can also visit our AI and Copyright hub for additional resources on federal court cases, current licensing, and more. Additionally, if you aren’t already a member of the Copyright Alliance, you can join today by completing our Creator Membership form! Members gain access to monthly newsletters, educational webinars, and so much more — all for free!

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