Copyright and Marriage Equality Act

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.)

[Congressional Bills 113th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 5617 Introduced in House (IH)]

113th CONGRESS
  2d Session
                                H. R. 5617

 To amend title 17, United States Code, with respect to the definition 
         of ``widow'' and ``widower'', and for other purposes.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                           September 18, 2014

Mr. Kilmer (for himself, Mr. Capuano, Mr. Cicilline, Mr. Connolly, Ms. 
    DelBene, Mr. Deutch, Ms. Esty, Ms. Hahn, Mr. Hanna, Ms. Lee of 
 California, Ms. Lofgren, Mr. Lowenthal, Mr. McDermott, Mr. Moran, Mr. 
Murphy of Florida, Mr. Nadler, Mr. Polis, Mr. Rangel, Ms. Ros-Lehtinen, 
 Mr. Schiff, Mr. Takano, Ms. Velazquez, Mr. Blumenauer, Ms. Schwartz, 
Mr. Swalwell of California, Mr. Grijalva, Mr. Smith of Washington, Mr. 
Himes, Ms. Kuster, Mr. Peters of California, Ms. Meng, and Ms. Brownley 
of California) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the 
                       Committee on the Judiciary

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
 To amend title 17, United States Code, with respect to the definition 
         of ``widow'' and ``widower'', and for other purposes.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Copyright and Marriage Equality 
Act''.

SEC. 2. DEFINITION OF WIDOW AND WIDOWER IN TITLE 17, UNITED STATES 
              CODE.

    (a) In General.--Section 101 of title 17, United States Code, is 
amended by striking the definition of ```widow' or `widower''' and 
inserting the following:
            ``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, whether or not the spouse has later 
        remarried.''.
    (b) Effective Date.--The amendment made by subsection (a) shall 
apply with respect to the death of any author that occurs on or after 
the date of the enactment of this Act.
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