September 15, 1993

Contact: Craig D'Ooge (202) 707-9189

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Librarian of Congress To Report to Congress on Copyright

Librarian of Congress James H. Billington today received a report from the Advisory Committee on Copyright Registration and Deposit (ACCORD). Dr. Billington will, after consultation with his senior advisers, make his own recommendations to Congress on the report. It is expected he will make these recommendations in about two weeks.

The report contains two agreed upon recommendations: (1) an expansion of the mandatory deposit system that now requires copies of works published in the United States to be deposited in the Library of Congress; and (2) a simplified copyright registration system to induce more registrations with the Copyright Office, which is part of the Library of Congress.

The advisory committee, whose members include copyright experts and academicians, was established in response to the Copyright Reform Act of 1993, a bill introduced in the House and Senate in February. That legislation would make changes in current copyright law affecting registration practices. The Librarian formed the advisory committee to prepare a report detailing the impact of the legislation on the Library of Congress's collections and the copyright registration system.

The report was prepared by the co-chairs Barbara Ringer, the former Register of Copyrights, and Robert Wedgeworth, president of the International Federation of Libraries and Library Associations and interim University Librarian, University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign, to reflect the views of the 20-member advisory committee.

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PR 93-115
9/15/93
ISSN 0731-3527