interest in a copyright may at any time record in the Copyright Office
a statement of the date of death of the author of the copyrighted work,
or a statement that the author is still living on a particular date. The
statement shall identify the person filing it, the nature of that person's
interest, and the source of the information recorded, and shall comply
in form and content with requirements that the Register of Copyrights
shall prescribe by regulation. The Register shall maintain current
records of information relating to the death of authors of copyrighted
works, based on such recorded statements and, to the extent the Register
considers practicable, on data contained in any of the records of the
Copyright Office or in other reference sources.

(e) Presumption as to Author's Death. -- After a period of seventy-
five years from the year of first publication of a work, or a period of one
hundred years from the year of its creation, whichever expires first,
any person who obtains from the Copyright Office a certified report
that the records provided by subsection (d) disclose nothing to indicate
that the author of the work is living, or died less than fifty years
before, is entitled to the benefit of a presumption that the author has
been dead for at least fifty years. Reliance in food faith upon this
presumption shall be a complete defense to any action for infringement
under this title.


Section 303. Duration of copyright: Works created but not published or
copyrighted before January 1, 1978.

Copyright in a work created before January 1, 1978, but not
theretofore in the public domain or copyrighted, subsists from January
1, 1978, and endures for the term provided by section 302. In no case,