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Copyright Law On The Planet

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“Only one thing is impossible for God: To find any sense in any copyright law on the planet” (Mark Twain). The concept of copyright in the United States has a large history. The first form of copyright in the United States stems from Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8 of the U.S. Constitution in the year 1787, where “Congress shall have power . . . to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries." These “exclusive rights” were originally extremely limited, as the first Copyright Act of 1790 only applied to maps, charts, and books. As time has advanced, copyright practices in the United States have undergone several reforms, among the most recent being the infamous Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) of 1998. Said act updated United States law to the requirements of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), such as placing limitations on the liability of online service providers for copyright violations made by users. The act, however, has been a subject of controversy in recent times, as some content creators abuse it to control access to their content. This is accomplished through methods such as copyright trolling, in which the copyright holder produces works solely for the purpose of litigation rather than distribution. Oftentimes, these practices are thought to be a violation of fair use, which enables copyrighted work to be used without

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