DESCRIPTION
29th Annual BTLJ-BCLT Spring Symposium: Origins, Evolution, and Possible Futures of the 1976 Copyright Act
Welcoming Remarks | Opening Keynote | Panel 1: Origins of the 1976 Copyright Act
April 16, 2026
2.50 General CLE Offered
Event Information | Agenda | Resource(s) | Speaker Bio(s) & Contact Info
At the 29th Annual Berkeley Center for Law and Technology–Berkeley Technology Law Journal Symposium, Register of Copyrights Shira Perlmutter and Professors Peter Menell, Jessica Litman, and Jane Ginsburg examined the origins, structural compromises, and enduring limitations of the Copyright Act of 1976, concluding that while its core architecture has proven remarkably resilient against successive technological disruptions, the statute’s negotiated promises to authors have broken down in practice, leaving individual creators systematically disadvantaged a half-century after enactment.
Instructor(s)
Shira Perlmutter, Register of Copyrights and Director, U.S. Copyright Office
Jessica Litman, Professor, University of Michigan Law School
Jane Ginsburg, Professor, Columbia Law School
Peter Menell, Professor and Faculty Co-Director, Berkeley Center for Law and Technology, UC Berkeley School of Law
Pamela Samuelson, Professor and Faculty Co-Director, Berkeley Center for Law and Technology, UC Berkeley School of Law
Molly Van Houweling, Professor and Faculty Co-Director, Berkeley Center for Law and Technology, UC Berkeley School of Law.