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Congress passed the first U.S. Copyright Act in 1790, which gave authors a renewable term of copyright protection
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For older works (before 1978) expiration depends on when the work was published and whether it was published with notice to the official Copyright Office- in other words, expiration is 95 years from the date of the publication.
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Any work published prior to 1923 is considered public domain.
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Since the original passage, the act has been amended numerous times, most notably in 1976, when VRC technology challenged the courts to interpret what types of recordings were considered infringements.
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After 1978, any original work of authorship is automatically copyrighted without official notification, registration, or puplication. For recent works, copyright protection expires automatically 70 years after the death of the original author.
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The popular peer-peer network, Napster, was forced to shut down after filing bankruptcy.
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The Technology, Education, and Copyright Harmonization (TEACH) Act of 2002 was designed primarily to address the need for clarification of permissible uses of copyrighted works in distance learning contexts.
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The teac act is also for blended learning environments, where contentand experiences supplemental face-to-face instruction are available to students online.
