The Copyright Office has released a revised draft of the Compendium. Read more.
Acting Register of Copyrights Karyn Temple Claggett has released an updated version of the Compendium of U.S. Copyright Office Practices, Third Edition. This update is effective as of September 29, 2017, and it is the governing administrative manual for registrations and recordations issued by the U.S. Copyright Office on or after that date. Read more.
The Compendium does not cover every principle of copyright law or detail every aspect of the Office’s administrative practices. In particular, this update does not reflect changes made by the recent interim rules on secure tests, the final rule on the deposit requirements for published monographs and printed music, the final rule on group registration of newspapers, the final rule on group registration of photographs, the final rule on copyright notice, the final rule on fees for recording documents with electronic title lists, or the interim rule on document recordation. Likewise, it does not reflect changes made by the recent technical upgrades to the electronic registration system.
Full citation: U.S. Copyright Office, Compendium of U.S. Copyright Office Practices § 101 (3d ed. 2017).
Short form citation: Compendium (Third) § 101.1(A).
The Office has prepared a complete list of the sections that have been added, amended, revised, or removed in this release. In addition, the Office has prepared a set of redlines, which provide a direct comparison between the current version and the 2014 version of the Compendium. The public draft released on June 1, 2017, may be accessed here. Read more.
The Office makes available archived versions of the Compendium, which were released by the Office from 1967 onwards. Read more