Termination of Transfers and Licenses Under 17 U.S.C. §203

Section 203 of the Copyright Act permits authors (or, if the authors are not alive, their surviving spouses, children or grandchildren, or executors, administrators, personal representatives or trustees) to terminate grants of copyright assignments and licenses that were made on or after January 1, 1978 when certain conditions have been met.  Notices of termination may be served no earlier than 25 years after the execution of the grant or, if the grant covers the right of publication, no earlier than 30 years after the execution of the grant or 25 years after publication under the grant (whichever comes first).  However, termination of a grant cannot be effective until 35 years after the execution of the grant or, if the grant covers the right of publication, no earlier than 40 years after the execution of the grant or 35 years after publication under the grant (whichever comes first).

Because notices of termination under section 203 may be served, at their earliest, 25 years after the execution of a post-1977 grant, the first date on which any section 203 notices of termination could be served was January 1, 2003.

Notices of termination must comply in form, content, and manner with requirements in a regulation issued by the Register of Copyrights. The Register of Copyrights proposed a regulation governing notices of termination under section 203, and sought comments on the regulation.  The proposed regulation was based on the existing regulation governing notices of termination under section 304 of the Copyright Act.  Section 304 permits termination of grants of copyright assignments and licenses during the extended renewal term for pre-1978 works, and authors and other qualified successors have been serving notices of termination under section 304 since 1978.

On December 23, 2002, the Register published an interim regulation virtually identical to the proposed regulation, effective January 1, 2003, until the effective date of a final regulation.

On April 8, following a public comment period on the interim regulation, the Register published a final regulation, which is effective May 8, 2003.

Background Documents