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Title 17 — CopyrightsRelease 119-73not60

§113 Scope of Exclusive Rights in Pictorial, Graphic, and Sculptural Works

Title 17 › Chapter 1— SUBJECT MATTER AND SCOPE OF COPYRIGHT › § 113

Last updated Apr 5, 2026|Official source

Summary

Copyright owners of pictures, graphics, and sculptures have the sole right to make copies of their work and to put those copies on or in any kind of article, useful or not. That right is subject to limits. If a work shows a useful object, copyright does not change whatever rights about making, selling, or displaying that object existed under federal or state law or court decisions as of December 31, 1977. Also, if a work was lawfully made into useful articles that were sold or given to the public, the copyright owner cannot stop photos or pictures of those articles being used in ads, commentaries about selling them, or news reports. When a visual artwork is built into a building so that removing it would destroy or damage it, and the artist agreed to that installation either before the effective date set forth in section 610(a) of the Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990 or in a written agreement signed by the artist and building owner saying removal may damage the work, special rules apply. If the owner wants to remove an artwork that can be taken out without damage, the artist’s rights to prevent destruction or distortion apply unless the owner tried in good faith to notify the artist and failed, or gave written notice and the artist did not remove or pay for removal within 90 days. The Copyright Office must keep a registry where artists can record contact information and owners can record their efforts to notify.

Full Legal Text

Title 17, §113

Copyrights — Source: USLM XML via OLRC

(a)Subject to the provisions of subsections (b) and (c) of this section, the exclusive right to reproduce a copyrighted pictorial, graphic, or sculptural work in copies under section 106 includes the right to reproduce the work in or on any kind of article, whether useful or otherwise.
(b)This title does not afford, to the owner of copyright in a work that portrays a useful article as such, any greater or lesser rights with respect to the making, distribution, or display of the useful article so portrayed than those afforded to such works under the law, whether title 17 or the common law or statutes of a State, in effect on December 31, 1977, as held applicable and construed by a court in an action brought under this title.
(c)In the case of a work lawfully reproduced in useful articles that have been offered for sale or other distribution to the public, copyright does not include any right to prevent the making, distribution, or display of pictures or photographs of such articles in connection with advertisements or commentaries related to the distribution or display of such articles, or in connection with news reports.
(d)(1)In a case in which—
(A)a work of visual art has been incorporated in or made part of a building in such a way that removing the work from the building will cause the destruction, distortion, mutilation, or other modification of the work as described in section 106A(a)(3), and
(B)the author consented to the installation of the work in the building either before the effective date set forth in section 610(a) of the Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990, or in a written instrument executed on or after such effective date that is signed by the owner of the building and the author and that specifies that installation of the work may subject the work to destruction, distortion, mutilation, or other modification, by reason of its removal,
(2)If the owner of a building wishes to remove a work of visual art which is a part of such building and which can be removed from the building without the destruction, distortion, mutilation, or other modification of the work as described in section 106A(a)(3), the author’s rights under paragraphs (2) and (3) of section 106A(a) shall apply unless—
(A)the owner has made a diligent, good faith attempt without success to notify the author of the owner’s intended action affecting the work of visual art, or
(B)the owner did provide such notice in writing and the person so notified failed, within 90 days after receiving such notice, either to remove the work or to pay for its removal.
(3)The Register of Copyrights shall establish a system of records whereby any author of a work of visual art that has been incorporated in or made part of a building, may record his or her identity and address with the Copyright Office. The Register shall also establish procedures under which any such author may update the information so recorded, and procedures under which owners of buildings may record with the Copyright Office evidence of their efforts to comply with this subsection.

Legislative History

Notes & Related Subsidiaries

Historical and Revision Notes

house report no. 94–1476

section 113 deals with the extent of copyright protection in “works of applied art.” The section takes as its starting point the Supreme Court’s decision in Mazer v. Stein, 347 U.S. 201 (1954) [74 S.Ct. 460, 98 L.Ed. 630, rehearing denied 74 S.Ct. 637, 347 U.S. 949, 98 L.Ed. 1096], and the first sentence of subsection (a) restates the basic principle established by that decision. The rule of Mazer, as affirmed by the bill, is that copyright in a pictorial, graphic, or sculptural work will not be affected if the work is employed as the design of a useful article, and will afford protection to the copyright owner against the unauthorized reproduction of his work in useful as well as nonuseful articles. The terms “pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works” and “useful article” are defined in section 101, and these definitions are discussed above in connection with section 102. The broad language of section 106(1) and of subsection (a) of section 113 raises questions as to the extent of copyright protection for a pictorial, graphic, or sculptural work that portrays, depicts, or represents an image of a useful article in such a way that the utilitarian nature of the article can be seen. To take the example usually cited, would copyright in a drawing or model of an automobile give the artist the exclusive right to make automobiles of the same design? The 1961 Report of the Register of Copyrights stated, on the basis of judicial precedent, that “copyright in a pictorial, graphic, or sculptural work, portraying a useful article as such, does not extend to the manufacture of the useful article itself,” and recommended specifically that “the distinctions drawn in this area by existing court decisions” not be altered by the statute. The Register’s Supplementary Report, at page 48, cited a number of these decisions, and explained the insuperable difficulty of finding “any statutory formulation that would express the distinction satisfactorily.” section 113(b) reflects the Register’s conclusion that “the real need is to make clear that there is no intention to change the present law with respect to the scope of protection in a work portraying a useful article as such.” section 113(c) provides that it would not be an infringement of copyright, where a copyright work has been lawfully published as the design of useful articles, to make, distribute or display pictures of the articles in advertising, in feature stories about the articles, or in the news reports. In conformity with its deletion from the bill of Title II, relating to the protection of ornamental designs of useful articles, the Committee has deleted subsections (b), (c), and (d) of section 113 of S. 22 as adopted by the Senate, since they are no longer relevant.

Editorial Notes

References in Text

section 610(a) of the Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990 [Pub. L. 101–650], referred to in subsec. (d)(1)(B), is set out as an

Effective Date

note under section 106A of this title.

Amendments

1990—Subsec. (d). Pub. L. 101–650 added subsec. (d).

Statutory Notes and Related Subsidiaries

Effective Date

of 1990 AmendmentAmendment by Pub. L. 101–650 effective 6 months after Dec. 1, 1990, see section 610 of Pub. L. 101–650, set out as an

Effective Date

note under section 106A of this title.

Reference

Citations & Metadata

Citation

17 U.S.C. § 113

Title 17 — Copyrights

Last Updated

Apr 5, 2026

Release point: 119-73not60