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United States · Bill · HR

H.R. 5617 (113th)

Copyright and Marriage Equality Act

referredUnited States· United States Congress· EN

Introduced

18 September 2014

Last action

28 October 2014 · Referred

Status

Referred to the Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet.

Sponsors

Derek Kilmer, MICHAEL CAPUANO, David Cicilline, Gerald Connolly, Rep. DelBene, Suzan K. [D-WA-1], Theodore Deutch, Elizabeth Esty, Rep. Hahn, Janice [D-CA-44], Rep. Hanna, Richard L. [R-NY-22], Barbara Lee, Zoe Lofgren, Alan Lowenthal, Rep. McDermott, Jim [D-WA-7], Rep. Moran, James P. [D-VA-8], Rep. Murphy, Patrick [D-FL-18], Rep. Nadler, Jerrold [D-NY-12], Jared Polis, Rep. Rangel, Charles B. [D-NY-19], ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Sen. Schiff, Adam B. [D-CA], Mark Takano, Rep. Velázquez, Nydia M. [D-NY-7], Earl Blumenauer, Rep. Schwartz, Allyson Y. [D-PA-13], Eric Swalwell, Raúl Grijalva, Rep. Smith, Adam [D-WA-9], James Himes, Ann Kuster, Scott Peters, Rep. Meng, Grace [D-NY-6], Julia Brownley, SUSAN DAVIS, James McGovern, Rep. Titus, Dina [D-NV-1], John Yarmuth

Subjects

Discovery layer

Source updated

5 December 2025

Official sourceDownload fileView documentsShare

Summary

Copyright and Marriage Equality Act - Amends federal copyright law to revise the definition of "widow" or "widower" for purposes of provisions concerning the transfer of a copyright to an author's spouse or other next of kin following the author's death. Declares that an individual is the widow or widower of an author if the courts of the state in which the individual and the author were married (or, if the individual and the author were not married in any state but were validly married in another jurisdiction, the courts of any state) would find that the individual and the author were validly married at the time of the author's death. (Currently, only the author's surviving spouse under the law of the author's domicile at the time of death is considered a widow.)

This text is taken from the official record. PoliticalRepo does not editorialize.

Timeline

  1. 18 September 2014

    Introduced

    Referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary.

    Source: IntroReferral

  2. 18 September 2014

    Introduced

    Introduced in House

    Source: IntroReferral

  3. 18 September 2014

    Introduced

    Introduced in House

    Source: IntroReferral

  4. 28 October 2014

    Referred

    Referred to the Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet.

    Source: Committee

Votes

No vote records are attached yet.

Versions

Documents

3 official files

Introduced in House (text)

View fileDownload file

Sponsors

Related records

Sources

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