Ownership of copyright as distinct from ownership of material object
United States Code
Citation analytics
How this statute sits in the citation network, derived from CiteLaw's graph of published opinions.
★Highly CitedTop 1% most-cited · cited by 106 decisions
106
Citing decisions
6+
Courts citing
Citations by decade
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1970s1980s1990s2000s2010s2020s
Courts citing this statute
Most recently cited by10
- 2024McKenzie v. Artists Rights Society, Inc. S.D.N.Y.
- 2024Schoeps v. Sompo Holdings, Inc. N.D. Ill.
- 2024Oracle International Corporation v. Rimini Street, Inc. 9th Cir.
- 2023Pearl Records, Inc. v. Conner E.D. Tex.
- 2021Jim Olive Photography, D/B/A Photolive, Inc. v. University of Houston System Tex.
- 2021Bitmanagement Software Gmbh v. United States Fed. Cir.
- 2021Ferguson and Katzman Photography, Inc. v. Key Food Stores Co-Operative, Inc. S.D.N.Y.
- 2020Photographic Illust'rs Corp. v. Orgill, Inc. 1st Cir.
- 2020Chevrestt v. Barstool Sports, Inc. S.D.N.Y.
- 2019Photographic Illustrators Corp. v. Orgill, Inc. D. Mass.
Counts reflect decisions in the CiteLaw corpus and may lag very recent opinions.
Text
Ownership of a copyright, or of any of the exclusive rights under a copyright, is distinct from ownership of any material object in which the work is embodied. Transfer of ownership of any material object, including the copy or phonorecord in which the work is first fixed, does not of itself convey any rights in the copyrighted work embodied in the object; nor, in the absence of an agreement, does transfer of ownership of a copyright or of any exclusive rights under a copyright convey property rights in any material object. (Source: (Pub. L. 94–553, title I, § 101, Oct. 19, 1976, 90 Stat. 2568.))