By JUDITH NIERMAN
After three years of analysis, design, development and internal testing of the Copyright Office Electronic Registration, Recordation and Deposit System (CORDS), the Copyright Office on Feb. 27 received its first digital copyright application and deposit using the new system.
CORDS is a multiphase project to develop and implement a totally electronic system for processing copyright applications, deposited works, related documents and rights management information over international communications networks such as the Internet. The first digital deposit was an unpublished computer science dissertation, "Signature and Specification Matching," written by Amy Moormann Zaremski and filed from Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh.
"Service to Congress and the nation will be improved" by CORDS, said Register of Copyrights Marybeth Peters. "Works in digital form and associated rights management information needed for required licensing and permissions will be made available much more quickly than in the past."
Copyright Office staff were on site at both the origin of the first submission - Carnegie-Mellon - and the destination - the Copyright Office - during the first transmission. Ms. Zaremski herself filed her application and deposit. Acting Literary Section Head Melissa Dadant and Dave Ely of the Corporation for National Research Initiatives (CNRI) traveled to Pittsburgh to advise on the initial transmission. Mr. Ely, the chief technical expert and primary CORDS software developer from CNRI, coordinated technical details of the software texting. Ms. Zaremski herself filed her application and deposit.
Members of the Library's CORDS implementation team gathered at the Copyright Office to receive and review the transmissions. The team includes staff from the CORDS Working Group on Operations, the CORDS Working Policy Committee,the Copyright Office and the Library's Information Technology Services division.
Since fiscal year 1993, the Copyright Office, the Library of Congress and CNRI have been cooperating on the creation of CORDS. Developing the testbed system under contract from the Advanced Research Projects Agency and the Library, CNRI is leading a national effort with the Copyright Office to develop an infrastructure for linking digital works in electronic libraries and other transaction-based systems. Six universities are cooperating in Phase I, which is limited to copyright registration and deposit of unpublished technical reports on computer science.
The CORDS team will analyze the lessons learned from the first external transmission, make necessary modifications to the software, receive additional applications and deposits from Carnegie-Mellon and then begin to expand Phase I to include the other participating universities.
In future test phases over the next few years, the Copyright Office will seek the cooperation of several small groups of copyright owners. Subsequent phases of testing will include other formats of copyrighted works, starting with a limited number of published text works and adding text with graphics, images, sound recordings, video and other formats.
These test phases will continue while the Internet itself is maturing. Expansion of the Internet's bandwidth and increased speed of transmitting huge numbers of large data files simultaneously are essential features for efficient future CORDS transmissions.
CORDS will allow applicants to submit copyright applications and deposit their works electronically. Claimants will file their applications and deposit materials in machine-readable format, "sign" their submissions using public key/private key encryption technology and send the applications and deposits to the Copyright Office over the Internet using Privacy Enhanced Mail.
CORDS will then enter the information into COINS (the Copyright Office In-Process System), debit the remitter's deposit account and create a RIP (Receipt In Process, stating that the application, fee and deposit were received), all electronically.
In addition, using CORDS, Copyright Office staff will be able to examine and catalog copyright applications and works electronically, entering the data into COPICS (Copyright Office Publication and Interactive Cataloging System). Copyright registration certificates will be issued through the Copyright Imaging System (CIS). The office's digital repository will ensure the digital deposits are secure and verifiable.
The CORDS project also includes the establishment of policies and operating procedures that the Library and the Copyright Office will need to store, retrieve and use copyrighted materials in secure depositories in accordance with the terms and conditions of access and use established by their owners.
In the digital repositories, individual works will receive unique digital identifiers called "handles." Handles are part of a system being tested as a possible national standard for locating individual digital objects and their associated rights and permissions information in digital repositories throughout the country.
"Once fully implemented over the next few years, CORDS will aid both the Copyright Office and copyright owners by providing an efficient new registration and recordation mechanism," said Associate Register for National Copyright Programs Mary Levering. Mrs. Levering has coordinated the development of CORDS.
CORDS also will play a large role in expanding the collections of the National Digital Library. "It will provide an effective source for the Library of Congress to acquire new publications in digital form for its growing National Digital Library," Mrs. Levering added. The digitized copyright deposits received through CORDS, once the system is fully implemented, will start to quickly expand the collections of the National Digital Library.
"The collections of the Library of Congress belong to the American people," Dr. Billington has said regarding the Digital Library. "We have a responsibility to make the enormous riches of this institution as accessible as possible to as many people as possible." With CORDS, the Library's users will be enriched through timely access to new, digitized, copyrighted materials.
Judith Nierman is a writer/editor in the Copyright office.