Pre-1870 Copyright Records

This is a guide to pre-1870 copyright records. Many never made it to the Library of Congress and were generally assumed lost (even though they mostly ended up at the National Archives).

Until mid-1870, copyright registration duties were handled by the local U.S. District Court of the author or proprietor, while the work itself was deposited with the Department of State (until 1846), the Library of Congress (1846-1859, 1865-1870), the Smithsonian Institution (concurrently 1846-1859), and the Patent Office (1859-1865, 1865-1870 concurrently). In 1870 all copyright responsibilities were centralized in the Library of Congress.

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Law professor Zvi Rosen has written extensively about pre-1870 copyright records in his blog Mostly IP History. Professor Rosen is currently an Assistant Professor at the Southern Illinois University School of Law. He previously served as a Lecturer and Visiting Scholar at The George Washington University Law School. Before that he served as the Abraham L. Kaminstein Scholar in Residence at the U.S. Copyright Office. He earned a LL.M. in Intellectual Property Law from The George Washington University Law School (2006).