and he was -- victor hugo was one of the major forces behind that international treaty. and it was basically what, the basic agreement of byrne -- and this is overly simplistic, but it was whatever you do for your own, you do for the foreigners, okay? and we still live under that regime. in the united states, we tried, you know, we were tied to -- i keep mentioning formalities. we were tied to this notion that if you want copyrights, you have to register them. you have to put the copyright notice on them. you have to say your name and the year that your copyright. and we didn't want to give up that kind of formality because there was no formalities required under this berne convention. so we tried everything. we had pan-american copyright conventions, we did not join the berne convention until 1989, o.k.? so that's sort of -- i think that history of copyright is important when we come to the last section of my talk which is, you know, we need to talk about the future. and the first thing is you might have guessed, is that it's time for a new law. this is not just marie b

victor hugo was one of the major forces behind the international treaty and it is the basic agreement, over simply stated but whatever you do for a euro due for the force. in the united states, we tried -- i keep mentioning formalities. we are tied to vat if you want copyright to have directors that. you have to state your name and we didn't want to give up that kind of formality. there is no formality required after the convention. so they stayed out of it. we tried everything. we did not join the berne convention until 1989. so i think that history of copyright is important in the last section of my talk, which is we need to talk about this. the first thing is you might have cast is that these times were a new law. this is not just read growth, no copyright lawyers say that we need a new copyright act. the register copyright is the new copyright act. anybody who has any right thinks we need a new copyright act. register of copyrights is diplomatic. it is certainly showing the strain. agitating for a new copyright act. i think we are seeing a lot of interest in the scholarship that i