29th Annual BTLJ-BCLT Spring Symposium: Origins, Evolution, and Possible Futures of the 1976 Copyright Act

Sponsor: BCLT

To mark the 50th anniversary of the Copyright Act of 1976, the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology and the Kernochan Center for Law, Media and the Arts at Columbia Law School are sponsoring this joint bi-coastal symposium. The Berkeley event, on April 16-17, 2026, examined the origins of the 1976 Act, its key reforms and features, as well the challenges that the regime has encountered as a result of technological change. The Columbia event, on October 23-24, 2026, will focus on how the 1976 Act and subsequent reforms have interacted with public and private institutions, from the Copyright Office and the courts to collecting societies and voluntary and open source licensing organizations. Both events will explore how copyright law might be reformed to address challenges posed by new technologies, notably artificial intelligence. Symposium speakers will include Shira Perlmutter, the 14th Register of Copyrights, judges from the Second and Ninth Circuits, and leading copyright scholars. Symposium essays will be published in the Berkeley Technology Law Journal and the Columbia Journal of Law & the Arts.

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