<Tr> <Th_colspan="2"> Major amendments </Th> </Tr> <Tr> <Td_colspan="2"> repealed by the Copyright Act of 1976 </Td> </Tr> <P> The Copyright Act of 1909 was a landmark statute in United States statutory copyright law . It became Pub. L. 60--349 on March 4, 1909 by the 60th United States Congress, and it went into effect on July 1, 1909 . The Act was repealed and superseded by the Copyright Act of 1976, but it remains effective for copyrighted works created before the Copyright Act of 1976 went into effect in January 1, 1978 . It allowed for works to be copyrighted for a period of 28 years from the date of publication . It extended the term from 28 years with a renewal of 14 years (effective as of the Copyright Act of 1831) to 28 years with a renewal of 28 years, for a maximum of 56 years . </P> <P> Before the 1909 Act, the last major revision to United States copyright law was the 1790 Act . Methods of reproducing and duplicating works subject to copyright had significantly increased since the 1790 Act . President Theodore Roosevelt expressed the need for a complete revision of copyright law as opposed to amendments, saying in a message to Congress in December 1905, "Our copyright laws urgently need revision . They are imperfect in definition, confused and inconsistent in expression; they omit provision for many articles which, under modern reproductive processes, are entitled to protection; they impose hardships upon the copyright proprietor which are not essential to the fair protection of the public; they are difficult for the courts to interpret and impossible for the Copyright Office to administer with satisfaction to the public ." </P>

What did the copyright act of 1909 mandate