As part of our Preservation and Library Special Edition, the co-editors, Rina Pantalony and Elizabeth Townsend Gard, wanted to revisit Eric J. Schwartz’s “The National Film Preservation Act of 1988: A Copyright Case Study in the Legislative Process” 36 J. Copyright Soc’y U.S.A. 138 (January 1989). Written 36 years ago, the piece takes us to the legislative journal of how film preservation and copyright law intersected, leading to legislation and ultimately, the creation of two organizations working gto help save the American film heritage, along with others in the field. Eric continues to do this work with the National Film Preservation Board and the National Film Preservation Foundation. We thought this was the perfect addition to the conversion on preservation 36 years later. We asked Eric to write a short introduction to the republication of his piece.

An Introduction and Reprinting of Eric J. Schwartz’s 1989 Journal of the Copyright Society Article