• the first copyright act, the Statute of Anne or "An Act for the Encouragement of Learning" (pictured), became law almost 300 years ago?
• under the United States' doctrine of substantial similarity, a work can be found to infringe copyright even if the wording of the text has been changed?
• the United States Air Force does not own the copyright to its official service song, "The U.S. Air Force"?
• Lawrence Turner, who presented a Parliamentary petition calling for W. S. Gilbert's copyright on the libretti of Gilbert and Sullivan operas to be extended indefinitely, was the grandson of comic actor George Grossmith who starred in them?
• British music publisher Boosey & Hawkes owns copyrights to much major 20th century music, including works by Bartók, Bernstein, Britten, Elliott Carter, Rachmaninoff, Steve Reich and Stravinsky?
• Scottish bookseller Alexander Donaldson sold cheap copies of books after their copyright had expired, in disregard to London booksellers' opinions on literary property?

Facts on topics related to Copyright

Public domain

• AT&T once released designs for 83,539 equivalent transforms of a circuit into the public domain just to deny their competitors the ability to patent them?
• Russian photography pioneer Karl Bulla (pictured) left more than 200,000 glass negatives that are now in the public domain?
• before Nielsen BookScan began tracking point of sale data at bookstores, nobody knew how many copies were being sold of literary works that were published by multiple publishers and had entered the public domain?
• the invention of the electronic digital computer was put into the public domain in 1973 by the decision of one of the longest federal court cases in the history of the United States?

Fair use

• the decision in Gyles v Wilcox established the legal precedent of fair abridgement, which later evolved into the modern concept of fair use?

Copyright infringement

• pirated CDs were identified by the IFPI to account for 50% of all music sales in Greece in 2006?
• English printer John Day raided the printing premises of his son, Richard Day, after the latter had pirated his father's works and illicitly published his own versions?
• a class action suit was filed in US Federal Court against R2C2, a company that sells term papers online, alleging copyright infringement for reselling papers written by other authors?
• the proposed Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement would allow security officials at some international borders to randomly search travelers' MP3 players, laptops, and cell phones for copyright-infringing music files?

Copyrights

• Thelma Keane was not only the inspiration for "Mommy" in The Family Circus, but also headed the negotiations in which her husband, cartoonist Bil Keane, regained full copyrights to the comic strip?
• Debo Hacerlo was the last album released by Mexican singer-songwriter Juan Gabriel until 1994, due to a dispute with BMG over copyrights of his songs?