COPYRIGHTABLE SUBJECT MATTER IN THE "NEXT GREAT COPYRIGHT ACT"

The drafters of the Next Great Copyright Act will have to establish the subject matter that their statute will protect. Currently, the 1976 Copyright Act protects a very broad range of subject matter, though its reach is not unlimited. This Article does not propose that the Next Great Copyright Act expand or contract copyright's subject matter. Instead, it draws on experience under the current act and its predecessor (the 1909 Copyright Act) to offer lessons to guide legislators in drafting a new statute's subject-matter provisions. Congress should expressly and exhaustively enumerate in the statute all of the categories of subject matter that it intends to protect. Congress should statutorily define each enumerated category, and should do so with sufficient breadth that rapid technological developments do not quickly make the definitions obsolete. Finally, Congress should make clear that works of authorship incorporating preexisting material-in particular, compilations of preexisting material-are copyrightable only if they come within one of the expressly enumerated categories.