___.Window of Opportunity: A Blueprint for the Fu-
ture.New York: Tom Doherty Associates, 1984. In
a fascinating preview of the political upheaval
that was to come, Gingrich discusses his goals for
the nation.
Mayhew, David R.America’s Congress: Actions in the
Public Sphere, James Madison Through Newt Gingrich.
New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2000. A
leading legislative authority places the Contract
with America in its historical context while noting
the stability of American institutions.
R. Matthew Beverlin
See also Armey, Dick; Christian Coalition; Clin-
ton, Bill; Conservatism in U.S. politics; Elections in
the United States, midterm; Gingrich, Newt; Line
Item Veto Act of 1996; Republican Revolution; Term
limits.
Copyright legislation
Definition Laws passed by Congress updating U.S.
copyright law to address challenges in
protecting intellectual property in the digital
age
The 1990’s marked the beginning of efforts by Congress to
pass laws aimed at helping filmmakers, artists, authors,
and software developers protect the copyrights to their digi-
tal works.
With the emergence of new technologies such as
computers and the Internet, anything from music to
software could be duplicated and distributed with
the click of a computer mouse. Digital copies, unlike
copies on paper, tape, and film, could be repro-
duced infinitely with no loss of clarity. As a result, pi-
rates worldwide were copying music, video, and text
instantly, constantly, and illegally.
Copyright and the Internet By the 1990’s, copyright
laws based on national boundaries had been made
irrelevant by the borderless and fast world of the In-
ternet. In December, 1996, under the auspices of the
World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO),
a U.N. organization that promotes the protection of
intellectual property throughout the world, copy-
right experts from 160 countries met in Geneva,
Switzerland, to draft the first major revision of inter-
national copyright laws in twenty-five years. During
this conference, WIPO adopted two treaties to en-
sure that the electronic transmission of any copy-
righted work was subject to the same rules as tradi-
tional print works.
As part of its implementation of the WIPO trea-
ties, the U.S. Congress passed legislation updating
the 1976 U.S. copyright law to make it illegal to copy
or download digital music, video, or other works
without permission from the copyright holders. The
Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (DMCA)
was backed by the entertainment, software, and pub-
lishing industries, as well as high-technology groups.
The DMCA also made it unlawful for people to cir-
cumvent high-tech tools such as passwords or other
security measures that copyright holders used to
protect their works from unauthorized copying.
Under the DMCA, Internet service providers
(ISPs), however, could not be held liable for copy-
right infringements when users uploaded material
to their sites. The Internet providers would be pro-
tected against copyright lawsuits if they acted only
as a “mere conduit” for transmitting copyrighted
articles, music, or artwork. The Internet providers
were required to prove that they had no actual
knowledge of the infringement and that they took
quick action to take the copyrighted material off
their sites. The law also allowed nonprofit libraries,
archives, schools, and public broadcasting stations
to copy data and contained provisions regarding the
licensing of music on the Internet and other digital
media. Still, while the DMCA helped copyright hold-
ers fight piracy, the explosion of sophisticated, Inter-
net-based music and motion pictures continued to
attract bootleggers who posed a mounting threat to
the U.S. entertainment industry.Extension of U.S. Copyright During the 1990’s,
Congress also extended the length of time authors,
artists, and other creators could own the copyrights
to their works with the passage of the Copyright
Term Extension Act of 1998 (CTEA). Before the
CTEA, copyright lasted for the life of the author plus
50 years (75 years for a work of corporate author-
ship). The CTEA extended copyright by an addi-
tional 20 years, to life of the author plus 70 years. For
works of corporate authorship, copyright was ex-
tended to 120 years after creation or 95 years after
publication, whichever endpoint was earlier. Con-
gress also allowed works that had been published
prior to January 1, 1978, to have their term of protec-224 Copyright legislation The Nineties in America