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courts often referred to the author’s failure to comply with formalities as a “dedication” of the work to the public domain.^[1]

This strict “opt-in” regime ended on January 1, 1978, the effective date of the Copyright Act of 1976.^[2] The Act converted copyright to an “opt-out” regime: federal copyright protection attached automatically, by operation of law, without any further action by the author, the moment a work was “fixed in a tangible medium of expression.”^[3] The 1976 Act preserved some existing formalities; copyrighted works were still required to bear a notice of copyright in a form specified by statute^[4] and to be deposited with the Library of Congress.^[5] In what Congress recognized as “a major change in the theoretical framework of American copyright law,”^[6] however, noncompliance with formalities was no longer necessarily fatal to copyright protection. The deposit requirement was expressly declared not to be a condition of copyrightability,^[7] and Congress provided a mechanism permitting authors to cure noncompliance with the notice requirement.^[8] The mechanism for curing defaults rested upon Congress’s perception of a need to protect authors from inadvertent or accidental losses of their rights,^[9] although authors who failed to avail themselves of the cure provision still risked having their work enter the public domain.^[10]

<fn follow=fn158>that, under Copyright Act of 1909, failure to comply with deposit requirement did not invalidate copyright). </ref>

1. See, e.g., Pub. Affairs Assocs. v. Rickover, 369 U.S. 111, 117–18 (1962) (Warren, C.J., dissenting); Donald Frederick Evans & Assocs. v. Cont’l Homes, Inc., 785 F.2d 897, 912 (11th Cir. 1986); Cooling Syst. & Flexibles, Inc. v. Stuart Radiator, Inc., 777 F.2d 485, 489 (9th Cir. 1985); Data Cash Sys., Inc. v. JS&A Group, 628 F.2d 1038, 1042 (7th Cir. 1980); Deward & Rich v. Bristol Sav. & Loan Corp., 120 F.2d 537, 540 (4th Cir. 1941); cf. Goodis v. United Artists Television, Inc., 278 F. Supp. 122, 125 (S.D.N.Y. 1968), rev’d, 425 F.2d 397 (2d Cir. 1970).
2. Pub. L. No. 94-553, § 102, 90 Stat. 2541, 2598 (1976) (codified at note preceding 17 U.S.C. § 101).
3. 17 U.S.C. § 102(a); see also H.R. Rep. No. 94-1476, at 52 (1976), reprinted in 1976 U.S.C.C.A.N. 5659 (explaining that fixation of work in a tangible medium “represents the dividing line between common law and statutory protection”); id. at 130 (“the statute would apply to all works created after its effective date, whether or not they are ever published or disseminated”).
4. See 17 U.S.C. §§ 401-404 (1988).
5. See id. § 407.
6. H.R. Rep. No. 94-1476, at 146.
7. See 17 U.S.C. § 407(a) (2008).
8. See id. § 405; see also, e.g., M. Kramer Mfg. Co. v. Andrews, 783 F.2d 421, 443–44 (4th Cir. 1986) (finding that plaintiff took adequate steps to cure deficiencies in copyright notice).
9. H.R. Rep. No. 94-1476, at 143 (justifying cure provisions as necessary to prevent “arbitrary and unjust forfeitures . . . resulting from unintentional or relatively unimportant omissions or errors in the copyright notice”).
10. See, e.g., Harris Custom Builders, Inc. v. Hoffmeyer, 92 F.3d 517, 520 (7th Cir. 1996); Princess Fabrics, Inc. v. CHF, Inc., 922 F.2d 99, 102–03 (2d Cir. 1990); Canfield v. Ponchatoula Times, 759 F.2d 493, 499 (5th Cir. 1985). Thus, authors who affirmatively desired to opt out of the federal system of copyright protection, and place their works in the public domain, could do so by purposefully failing to cure deficient formalities.