17 U.S.C. § 1101
Section 1101 · Unauthorized fixation and trafficking in sound recordings and music videos
Amended 2 times on record
Applied in 11 court decisions — leading case United States v. Moghadam (1999)
Most recently applied in 108 F. Supp. 3d 18 - Cortes v. Sony Corp. of America (June 2015)
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year.Markers show enactment, consequential amendments, and circuit splits over this section — watch for a citation surge after a change or a disagreement. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
(a) Unauthorized Acts.—Anyone who, without the consent of the performer or performers involved—
(1) fixes the sounds or sounds and images of a live musical performance in a copy or phonorecord, or reproduces copies or phonorecords of such a performance from an unauthorized fixation,
(2) transmits or otherwise communicates to the public the sounds or sounds and images of a live musical performance, or
(3) distributes or offers to distribute, sells or offers to sell, rents or offers to rent, or traffics in any copy or phonorecord fixed as described in paragraph (1), regardless of whether the fixations occurred in the United States,
shall be subject to the remedies provided in sections 502 through 505, to the same extent as an infringer of copyright.
(b) Definition.—In this section, the term “traffic” has the same meaning as in section 2320(e) of title 18.
(c) Applicability.—This section shall apply to any act or acts that occur on or after the date of the enactment of the Uruguay Round Agreements Act.
(d) State Law Not Preempted.—Nothing in this section may be construed to annul or limit any rights or remedies under the common law or statutes of any State.
Editorial notes U.S. Code · Office of the Law Revision Counsel
References in Text
The date of the enactment of the Uruguay Round Agreements Act, referred to in subsec. (c), is the date of enactment of Pub. L. 103–465, which was approved Dec. 8, 1994.
Amendments
2006—Subsec. (b). Pub. L. 109–181 added subsec. (b) and struck out heading and text of former subsec. (b). Text read as follows: “As used in this section, the term ‘traffic in’ means transport, transfer, or otherwise dispose of, to another, as consideration for anything of value, or make or obtain control of with intent to transport, transfer, or dispose of.”