Copyright, Compromise and Legislative History

Copyright law gives authors a property right. But what kind of property right? Indeed, a property right in what? The answers to these questions should be apparent from a perusal of title seventeen of the United States Code-the statute that confers the property right.\u27 Courts, however, have apparently found title seventeen an unhelpful guide. For the most part, they look elsewhere for answers, relying primarily on prior courts\u27 constructions of an earlier and very different statute on the same subject.