Manufacturing Clause

The Manufacturing clause is a

clause In language, a clause is a constituent that comprises a semantic predicand (expressed or not) and a semantic predicate. A typical clause consists of a subject and a syntactic predicate, the latter typically a verb phrase composed of a verb with ...

contained in

copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, education ...

legislation requiring that as a condition of obtaining copyright, all

copies Copy may refer to: * Copying or the product of copying (including the plural "copies"); the duplication of information or an artifact **Cut, copy and paste, a method of reproducing text or other data in computing **File copying **Photocopying, a p ...

of a work must be printed or otherwise produced domestically, from plates set domestically, rather than imported. In the United States, a manufacturing clause was included in the

International Copyright Act of 1891 The International Copyright Act of 1891 (, March 3, 1891) is the first U.S. congressional act that extended limited protection to foreign copyright holders from select nations. Formally known as the "International Copyright Act of 1891", but more ...

, which allowed certain non-resident aliens to obtain U.S. copyrights for the first time. The clause initially covered books, maps, photographs, and

lithographs Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by the German a ...

, and was subsequently extended to periodicals as well. Its extension to all other media was proposed in the 1897 Treloar Copyright Bill, which failed in committee. The manufacturing clause did not expire until 1986, keeping the United States out of the

Berne Convention The Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, usually known as the Berne Convention, was an international assembly held in 1886 in the Swiss city of Bern by ten European countries with the goal to agree on a set of leg ...