44 USC § 2117 - Limitation on liability

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When letters and other intellectual productions (exclusive of patented material, published works under copyright protection, and unpublished works for which copyright registration has been made) come into the custody or possession of the Archivist, the United States or its agents are not liable for infringement of copyright or analogous rights arising out of use of the materials for display, inspection, research, reproduction, or other purposes.

Source

(Pub. L. 90–620, Oct. 22, 1968, 82 Stat. 1291, § 2113; Pub. L. 94–553, § 105(b),Oct. 19, 1976, 90 Stat. 2599; renumbered § 2117 and amended Pub. L. 98–497, title I, §§ 102(a)(1), 107(a)(7),Oct. 19, 1984, 98 Stat. 2280, 2286.)

Historical and Revision Notes

Based on 44 U.S. Code, 1964 ed., § 400 (June 30, 1949, ch. 288, title V, § 510, as added Sept. 5, 1950, ch. 849, § 6(d),64 Stat. 583).

Amendments

1984—Pub. L. 98–497, § 107(a)(7), substituted “Archivist” for “Administrator of General Services”.

1976—Pub. L. 94–553substituted “productions (exclusive of patented material, published works under copyright protection, and unpublished works for which copyright registration has been made) come into the custody or possession of the Administrator of General Services, the United States or its agents are not liable for infringement of copyright or analogous rights” for “productions, exclusive of material copyrighted or patented, come into the custody or possession of the Administrator of General Services, the United States or its agents are not liable for infringement of literary property rights or analogous rights”.

Effective Date of 1984 Amendment

Amendment by Pub. L. 98–497effective Apr. 1, 1985, see section 301 ofPub. L. 98–497, set out as a note under section 2102 of this title.

Effective Date of 1976 Amendment

Amendment by Pub. L. 94–553effective Jan. 1, 1978, see section 102 ofPub. L. 94–553, set out as an Effective Date note preceding section 101 of Title 17, Copyrights.

The table below lists the classification updates, since Jan. 3, 2012, for this section. Updates to a broader range of sections may be found at the update page for containing chapter, title, etc.

The most recent Classification Table update that we have noticed was Wednesday, December 26, 2012

An empty table indicates that we see no relevant changes listed in the classification tables. If you suspect that our system may be missing something, please double-check with the Office of the Law Revision Counsel.

How To Use

Multiple entries for a section are listed most recent first, within the section.

The Session Year indicates which session of Congress was responsible for the changes classified. The Congress number forms the first part of the Public Law number; each Congress has two sessions.

Abbreviations used in the Description of Change column:

An empty field implies a standard amendment.
"new" means a new section or new note, or all new text of an existing section or note.
"nt" means note.
"nt [tbl]" means note [table].
"prec" means preceding.
"fr" means a transfer from another section.
"to" means a transfer to another section.
"omitted" means the section is omitted.
"repealed" means the section is repealed.
"nt ed change" and "ed change" - See the Editorial Classification Change Table [pdf].

The Public Law field is linked to the development of the law in the Thomas system at the Library of Congress.

The Statutes at Large field is linked to the text of the law, in the context of its volume of the Statutes at Large, at the Government Printing Office. Please note that it takes a while for these pages to get posted, so for very recent legislation, you need to look at the "enrolled" version at the Thomas site.

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Sections with change type "new" are a special case, still under development. All are now listed, at the title level only.

You will find that occassionally a specific update you notice in a Public Law listed in a classification table will already have made it into the Code. We assume this is an artifact of the LRC edit process. The LII does not edit the LRC content.

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General Reference

Refer to the LRC (Law Revision Council) for explanations about the US Code from the folks who put it all together.

You can look for information about what it is and is not, which titles are positive law, the schedule of Supplements, etc. Under download you can find the source data we use here (GPO locator files), as well as, PDF files that look just like the paper books (these may be rather large).

Refer to the Thomas site for changes that have not yet made it into the classification tables.

44 USC	Description of Change	Session Year	Public Law	Statutes at Large

This is a list of parts within the Code of Federal Regulations for which this US Code section provides rulemaking authority.

This list is taken from the Parallel Table of Authorities and Rules provided by GPO [Government Printing Office].

It is not guaranteed to be accurate or up-to-date, though we do refresh the database weekly. More limitations on accuracy are described at the GPO site.

5 CFR - Title 5—Administrative Personnel

5 CFR 1320 - CONTROLLING PAPERWORK BURDENS ON THE PUBLIC

36 CFR - Title 36—Parks, Forests, and Public Property

36 CFR 1220 - FEDERAL RECORDS; GENERAL

36 CFR 1254 - USING RECORDS AND DONATED HISTORICAL MATERIALS

36 CFR 1256 - ACCESS TO RECORDS AND DONATED HISTORICAL MATERIALS

36 CFR 1260 - DECLASSIFICATION OF NATIONAL SECURITY INFORMATION

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44 USC § 2117 - Limitation on liability

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