Handling about 550,000 copyright claims annually, the U.S. Copyright Office in the Library of Congress is making it much easier for the public to register and protect its collective creativity. On July 1, the Copyright Office entered the next phase in the implementation of its multi-year business-process reengineering effort to modernize operations from a paper-based to a Web-based processing environment.
“The Copyright Office’s reengineering initiative is not a goal, but a framework to continually improve business operations,” said Marybeth Peters, Register of Copyrights. “We will continue evaluating and making adjustments in workflows in the various process areas, testing and development of the IT system, and making system enhancements in response to feedback from both our staff and our customers.”
At the heart of the reengineering initiative is a new online registration system named electronic Copyright Office (eCO), which the office released through a portal on its Web site on July 1. Filing an eService claim via eCO offers several advantages:
- lower filing fee of $35 for a basic claim;
- fastest processing time;
- earlier effective date of registration;
- online status tracking;
- secure payment by credit or debit card, electronic check or Copyright Office deposit account; and
- ability to upload certain categories of deposits directly into eCO as electronic files.
Even users who intend to submit a hard copy of the work being registered may file an application and payment online and print out an eCO-generated shipping slip to be attached to the hard-copy deposit. The online registration system may be used to register basic claims to copyright for literary works; visual-arts works; performing-arts works, including motion pictures; sound recordings and single serials. Basic claims include (1) a single work, (2) multiple unpublished works if they are by the same author(s) and owned by the same claimant, and (3) multiple published works if they are all first published together in the same publication on the same date and owned by the same claimant.
The Copyright Office has also released the new Form CO, which replaces six traditional paper application forms. Users will complete a Form CO online, print it out and send it to the Copyright Office with payment and a copy (or copies) of the work being registered. Each Form CO is imprinted with 2-D barcodes that are scanned to automatically transfer the information contained in the form into an eCO service request record. The fee for registering a basic claim using Form CO is $45.
Paper applications for basic claims will still be made available through the Copyright Office. The fee for registering a basic claim using a traditional application form is $45. For more information on the various forms of registration or to access eCO, go to the Copyright Office Web site.
The U.S. Copyright Office was established as a separate department in the Library of Congress in 1897. The office registers claims to copyright, maintains and makes available records of registrations, records and maintains documents related to copyrights, administers compulsory licenses and provides policy expertise to the U.S. Congress and executive-branch agencies. The Copyright Office transfers more than 1 million items each year to the Library’s collections.
Section 109 Report Released
After more than a year of intensive study, on June 30 the U.S. Copyright Office issued its report on whether to maintain, modify or eliminate Sections 111, 119 and 122 of the Copyright Act. It will serve as the basis for discussion for possible changes to the statutory licenses.
Section 109 of the Satellite Home Viewer Extension and Reauthorization Act (SHVERA) of 2004 requires the Copyright Office to examine and compare the statutory licensing systems for the cable and satellite television industries under Sections 111, 119 and 122 of the Copyright Act and recommend any necessary legislative changes no later than June 30, 2008.
The Section 111 license, first enacted in 1976, permits a cable operator to retransmit both local and distant television and radio signals to its subscribers, provided that the cable operators pay royalties according to the formula set forth in the law. The other two licenses govern the retransmission of broadcast signals by satellite carriers. The Section 119 license, first enacted in 1988, permits a satellite carrier to retransmit distant superstation and network television-station signals (but not radio signals) to its subscribers for private home viewing and to commercial establishments on a flat-fee basis. The Section 122 statutory license, on the other hand, was first enacted in 1999 and permits satellite carriers to retransmit local television station signals into the stations’ local markets on a royalty-free basis. These statutory licenses are linked, in many respects, to the broadcast signal carriage rules administered by the Federal Communications Commission.
In preparing its report, the Copyright Office sought comment from the affected industries, copyright owners and other interested parties and held three days of hearings in July 2007 to further supplement the record. The report was delivered to Congress on June 30 by the Copyright Office.
The principal recommendation in the report is that Congress move toward abolishing Section 111 and Section 119 of the Act. According to the Copyright Office, the cable and satellite industries are no longer nascent entities in need of a statutory licensing system. They have substantial market power and are able to negotiate private agreements with copyright owners for programming carried on distant broadcast signals. Moreover, the Copyright Office finds that the Internet video marketplace is robust and is functioning well without a statutory license. The Copyright Office also concludes that the distant-signal programming marketplace is less important in an age when consumers have many more choices for programming from a variety of distribution outlets. The office nevertheless recommends the retention of a royalty-free local-into-local license, because such a license is still necessary and it promotes the general welfare of users, broadcasters and the public.
Despite the Copyright Office’s determination that the ultimate solution should be the elimination of the existing distant-signal licenses, it recognizes that the digital television transition in 2009 is likely to generate unanticipated signal-reception problems for millions of American households. The office also finds that it is important for Congress to provide a lifeline distant-signal service for subscribers during the post-transition period. The Copyright Office therefore recommends the establishment of a new statutory licensing system that would cover the retransmission of distant broadcast signals beginning on Jan. 1, 2010, and ending on Dec. 31, 2014. This will permit users of the license to serve the needs of their subscribers who may experience viewing disruptions. According to the Copyright Office, an equally important rationale for a transitional license is that it will take time for voluntary licensing arrangements to take shape and become widely available. The marketplace will work, but it needs to be given time to adapt to changes in the regulatory regime.
Congress may decide that there should still be separate statutory licenses for cable operators and satellite carriers. The Copyright Office, then, makes several recommendations for adjusting Sections 111, 119 and 122. The recommendations in this regard are intended to further parity between cable operators and satellite carriers.
An electronic version of the report is available under the “Hot Topics” section on the Copyright Office Web site.