The U.S. Copyright Office Reengineering Program

In summer 2007, the Copyright Office implemented its multi-year business process reengineering initiative to improve the efficiency and timeliness of the Copyright Office’s public services. In particular, the Office will began beta testing of online registration.

The reengineering initiative aims to produce a more efficient and effective customer-based registration and recordation process through specific project objectives. It will reshape the Office’s future and its services to creators and users of copyrighted works. The focus of this effort is to reengineer the Office’s principal business processes and public services of registering claims, recording documents, acquiring works for the Library of Congress, answering public requests, maintaining records and accounts, and processing licenses.

One major objective of the reengineering program is to increase the availability of Copyright Office services online. Another is to make Office records more promptly available via the Internet. Information technology improvements will provide better tracking of individual items in the workflow.

The Copyright Office’s reengineering methodology has been to evaluate the current or “as is” environment, to identify a future or “to be” environment, and then to implement the “to be” environment. The Office has completed the first two of these tasks and is now nearing the completion of the implementation phase of the reengineering plan. Significant progress has been made in defining improvements for its core business processes and mapping a comprehensive information technology strategy.

To learn more about the Copyright Office reengineering program, read RENEWS, the Office’s reengineering newsletter.