[4] That year, the Continental Congress concluded "that nothing is more properly a man's own an the fruit of his study, and that the protection and security of literary property would greatly tends to encourage genius and to promote useful discoveries.

[7] Seven states modeled their law on the Statute of Anne and the Continental Congress' resolution, providing two fourteen-year terms.

[7] James Madison of Virginia and Charles C. Pinckney of South Carolina introduced proposals for the Copyright Clause during the Constitutional Convention 1787.

The historian Davit Ramsay petitioned Congress seeking to restrict the publication of his History of the American Revolution on April 15.

Jedidiah Morse, Nicholas Pike, and Hannah Adams each also petitioned Congress with their interests in restricting the printing of texts.

They responded to President George Washington's first 1790 State of the Union Address,[10][11] in which he urged Congress to pass legislation designed for "the promotion of Science and Literature" so as to better educate the public.

The act granted copyright for a term of "fourteen years from the time of recording the title thereof" and one optional renewal.

The Statute of Anne differed from the 1790 Act, however, in providing a 21-year term of restriction, with no option for renewal, for works already published at the time the law went into effect (1710).