The act eliminated the previous requirements under US law that a second term of copyright protection is contingent on a renewal registration with the U.S.

[3] Strict time limits were imposed on renewal registration to secure the second term and extending copyright to the maximum length.

[4] The 1992 amending legislation secures this second term for works copyrighted between January 1, 1964, and December 31, 1977, without a renewal registration requirement.

[citation needed] The law specifies the persons who are eligible to claim renewal copyright.

[5] In the past several authors had lost considerable royalties on their works because they were not aware of the renewal procedure; this act aimed to prohibit such instances from occurring.

Byrd was informed by the Copyright Office that they had not received the renewal application for the song, and hence they would be ending royalty payments.

In 2007, four plaintiffs—the Internet Archive and its founder Brewster Kahle, and Prelinger Archives and its founder Rick Prelinger—filed the case Kahle v. Ashcroft in the Northern District of California, seeking a declaration that the Copyright Renewal Act was unconstitutional.