Printing Act of 1895

The Printing Act of 1895[1] was a law designed to centralize in the United States Government Printing Office the printing, binding, and distribution of U.S. Government documents.[2] The Act revised public printing laws and established the roles of the Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP) and the Government Printing Office (GPO) in distributing government information. The act also assigned leadership of the program to the Superintendent of Public Documents, who would be under the control of the GPO,[3]

The Printing Act is also significant because it contained the first statutory prohibition of copyright in Government publications.[2]

  1. ^ Ch. 23, "An Act Providing for the public printing and binding and the distribution of public documents", 28 Stat. 601
  2. ^ a b Copyright in Government Publications, in: Copyright Law Revision: Studies Prepared for the Subcomm. on Patents, Trademarks, and Copyrights of the Senate Comm. on the Judiciary, 86th Cong., 2d Sess. 29-30 (Comm. Print 1961)(Study 33), pp. 23-42.
  3. ^ Pettinato, T.R. (2007). "Legal information, the informed citizen, and the FDLP: the role of academic law librarians in promoting democracy". Law Library Journal. 99 (4): 695–716.