Exemptions and Fair Use in Copyright

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After decades of professional dissatisfaction and legislative debate, the Congress in 1976 passed a new copyright act to replace the Copyright Act of 1909. In this book, the author focuses upon the meaning of the “exclusive rights” Constitutional language where writers are concerned, and from his analysis, shows how, when copies of an author’s work are made under either the fair-use doctrine or a special exemption for library reproduction of copyrighted works, the 1976 Act has failed to solve old problems and has introduced troublesome new ones. A principal contribution of the book is its analysis of the theoretical foundations of copyright and the establishment of a conceptually coherent framework for the continuing debate on the appropriate limits of copyright protection. Of obvious value to the Copyright Bar and the judiciary, it is also a book that authors, literary agents, and publishers will find they need.