Federal Statutes

According to Black's Law Dictionary, a statute is a law passed by a legislative body.

Once a bill is enacted and therefore becomes a statute, it is first published as slip law and receives either a Public Law Number (i.e. Pub. L. No. 114-315) or Private Law Number (i.e. Priv. L. No. 94-75).

• Public Law vs. Private Law: Most laws passed by Congress are public laws. Public laws affect society as a whole. In contrast, a private law applies only to an individual or a small group. Private laws are enacted to assist citizens that have been injured by government programs or who are appealing an executive agency rulings. (Source: Govinfo, About Public and Private Laws)
• Numbers: The numbers in a public or private law number refer to the enacting Congress and the law number. For example, Pub. L. No. 114-315 tells us it is the 315th law enacted by the 114th Congress.

Session laws refers to all of the laws passed during a particular session of Congress. Session Laws are published in Statutes at Large in a chronological order. For example, Public Laws 112-1 through 112-75 are published in Part 1 of Volume 125 of Statutes at Large.

Statutes are also organized by topics. The official publication of the topical arrangement of the federal statutes is a set of print volumes known as the United States Code (U.S.C.)

• U.S.C. consists of 53 Titles with each title representing a topic.
  • ​Title 17 (Copyrights) contains the copyright statutes
• ​The sub-topics under a title are organized in Chapters.
  • Chapter 3 of Title 17 is titled Duration of Copyrights 
• ​A chapter contains individual sections. Because U.S.C. is a topical arrangement of statutes, sections grouped in the same chapter cover a similar topic.
  • ​Chapter 3 of Title 17 contains sections 301 - 305. These are copyright statutes governing copyright duration.
    • ​Section 302 governs duration of copyright for works created on or after 1/1/1978.
    • Section 303 governs duration of copyright for works created before 1/1/1978.
• ​Provisions from a statute are (or will be) codified in U.S.C. In some cases, different sections from a statute may end up in different title or chapter in U.S.C.
  • ​Pub. L. 114-231 contains multiple sections, including Section 404 and Section 501.
    • ​Section 404 is codified in 16 U.S.C. § 7644.
    • Section 501 is codified in 22 U.S.C. § 1978.

​

In addition to the United States Code, there are two other editions of the federal statutory codes: (1) United States Code Annotated (U.S.C.A.); (2) United States Code Service (U.S.C.S.)

• U.S.C.A. & U.S.C.S. are NOT the official federal code.
  • However, they contain not only the statutory language but also references to other helpful primary and secondary sources. (The official U.S.C. contains only the statutory language).
• U.S.C.A. & U.S.C.S. are also available electronically
  • U.S.C.A. -  Westlaw
  • U.S.C.S. -  Lexis+