May 8, 2009

Pamela Samuelson Remembers Legal Pioneer Barbara Ringer

From the Wall Street Journal

She Helped Put Her Stamp on Copyright Law

By Stephen Miller

Barbara A. Ringer, a scrivener in an odd niche of the federal bureaucracy who died April 9 at age 83, negotiated and drafted the Copyright Act of 1976, the first major revision in seven decades of a basic law governing intellectual property....

"She was one of the most important contributors to copyright law during the 20th century," says Pamela Samuelson, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley. In addition to updating U.S. law, the Copyright Act brought the country into line with international standards, paving the way for the U.S. to join the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works in 1989.

Yet, according to Ms. Samuelson, Ms. Ringer's best-known contribution to copyright history may have come at a 1971 hearing when she told a congressman that his son wouldn't infringe copyright if he recorded a song from the radio. The interaction became an important footnote in the Supreme Court decision in Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios Inc., which in 1984 established that taping television shows for home use was legal. Home taping, now covered as "fair use," became a national obsession in the decision's wake.

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Last updated:

October 4, 2016