Technological Upgrades to Registration and Recordation Functions, 17722-17724 [2013-06633]
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Federal Register / Vol. 78, No. 56 / Friday, March 22, 2013 / Notices
committee shall be deemed to be
employees of the United States
Government for any purpose by virtue
of their participation on the committee.
Members of the committee will not be
compensated for their services or
reimbursed for travel expenses.
Authority: The authority for this notice is
granted by the FACA (5 U.S.C. App. 2) and
the Secretary of Labor’s Order No. 18–2006
(71 FR 77560 (12/26/2006)).
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:
Paula Church Albertson, Division Chief,
Monitoring and Enforcement of Free
Trade Agreements, Bureau of
International Labor Affairs, U.S.
Department of Labor, telephone (202)
693–4789.
Signed at Washington, DC, this 15th day of
March 2013.
Carol Pier,
Acting Deputy Undersecretary, Bureau of
International Labor Affairs.
[FR Doc. 2013–06630 Filed 3–21–13; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4510–28–P
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
U.S. Copyright Office
[Docket No. 2013–2]
Technological Upgrades to
Registration and Recordation
Functions
U.S. Copyright Office, Library
of Congress.
ACTION: Notice of Inquiry.
srobinson on DSK4SPTVN1PROD with NOTICES
AGENCY:
SUMMARY: The United States Copyright
Office (hereinafter Copyright Office or
Office) is in the process of identifying
and evaluating potential improvements
and technical enhancements to the
information technology platforms that
support its registration and recordation
functions, including its online
registration system. These efforts are
part of the Office’s ongoing special
projects, commenced October 25, 2011
(available at the Office’s Web site at
www.copyright.gov/docs/priorities.pdf).
The information garnered through this
process has and will continue to inform
the development of the Copyright
Office’s long-term strategic plan,
scheduled to commence in October
2013.
At this time, the Office seeks
comments regarding existing
capabilities and future possibilities.
Broadly, the Office seeks comments on
(1) how stakeholders use the current
online offerings of the Copyright Office,
especially with respect to registration
and recorded documents, and how the
current offerings meet, fail to meet, or
VerDate Mar<15>2010
18:27 Mar 21, 2013
Jkt 229001
exceed user expectations; and (2) how
stakeholders would like to interact with
the Copyright Office electronically in
the future, or, put differently, what
online services, or aspects of existing
online services stakeholders would like
to see. The Office appreciates the
comments and suggestions of those who
use the national registration and
recordation systems to protect their
intellectual property, as well as those
who regularly use Copyright Office
resources to identify copyright owners,
investigate the copyright status of works
and the public domain, and perform
other research, including statistical
analysis on aggregated data sets.
DATES: Comments on the Notice of
Inquiry and Requests for Comments are
due on or before May 21, 2013.
Submission: All comments shall be
submitted electronically. A comment
page containing a comment form is
posted on the Copyright Office Web site
at https://www.copyright.gov/docs/
technical_upgrades. The Web site
interface requires submitters to
complete a form specifying name and
organization, as applicable, and to
upload comments as an attachment via
a browse button. To meet accessibility
standards, all comments must be
uploaded in a single file in either the
Portable Document File (PDF) format
that contains searchable, accessible text
(not an image); Microsoft Word;
WordPerfect; Rich Text Format (RTF); or
ASCII text file format (not a scanned
document). The maximum file size is 6
megabytes (MB). The name of the
submitter and organization should
appear on both the form and the face of
the comments. All comments will be
posted publicly on the Copyright Office
web site exactly as they are received,
along with names and organizations. If
electronic submission of comments is
not feasible, please contact the
Copyright Office at 202–707–8350 for
special instructions.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:
Douglas Ament, Director of Information
Technology, Copyright, by email at
uscotechupgrades@loc.gov; Christopher
S. Reed, Senior Advisor for Policy &
Special Projects, Office of the Register of
Copyrights, by email at creed@loc.gov;
or call the U.S. Copyright Office by
phone at 202–707–8350.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
I. Background
In 2000, the Copyright Office initiated
a comprehensive business process
reengineering initiative intended to
update the Office’s technology platform
and improve operational efficiency.
With the assistance of outside
PO 00000
Frm 00096
Fmt 4703
Sfmt 4703
consultants and business analysts, the
Office identified opportunities for
efficiency enhancements and process
improvements. The most significant
recommendation was to convert the
existing paper-based copyright
registration system to an electronic
system, which included the
development of related new business
processes and the automated production
of public copyright records.
Funding available for the
reengineering effort was limited and
decisions made by the Copyright Office
and the greater Library were necessarily
constrained. Ultimately the Office
implemented a commercial off-the-shelf
software package. The Office piloted the
internal business process functions of
the software with a subset of
constituents in February 2005, followed
by full implementation of the Copyright
Office’s electronic processing system in
August 2007. The public-facing
electronic registration system—the
system that enables copyright
registration applicants to submit
materials online—was launched in July
2008. The Office implemented a
significant upgrade to its software and
hardware platforms in August 2010, and
implemented periodic upgrades and
enhancements to accommodate the
needs of the system’s stakeholders—
namely those that submit materials for
registration, those that search the
Copyright Office database for copyright
ownership information, and the
Copyright Office’s staff that process and
examine copyright claims.
Today, more than eighty percent of
the Office’s applications for copyright
registration come through the electronic
system, demonstrating the copyright
community’s widespread interest in
electronic registration functions.
Although the current system, and the
periodic upgrades and enhancements,
have allowed the Office to maintain a
functional electronic platform for many
types of works, there is room for
substantial improvement. Notably, the
Office’s recordation services were
included in the initial reengineering
plan, but were later dropped for
budgetary reasons. Recordation
processes are, thus, still paper-based
and are a top concern of the Copyright
Office. Thus, the Office’s current
systems represent the ‘‘first generation’’
of the Office’s electronic processing
capabilities.
II. Discussion
In recent months, project leaders from
the Copyright Office have engaged
copyright owners, users of copyright
records, technical experts, public
interest organizations, and lawyers,
E:\FR\FM\22MRN1.SGM
22MRN1
srobinson on DSK4SPTVN1PROD with NOTICES
Federal Register / Vol. 78, No. 56 / Friday, March 22, 2013 / Notices
including through professional
associations and small businesses to
participate in a series of focused
discussions on issues relating to the
Office’s platforms for registration,
document recordation, and public
access to copyright ownership
information. Through these discussions,
as well as through its own expert
analysis, the Office has identified a
number of areas in which the current
electronic system could be improved.
For example, numerous interested
parties have observed that the current
user interface for electronic registration
is a challenge to navigate. Users have
told the Office that it would be helpful
to be able to customize the user
interface and workflow in order to
streamline the registration process to
accommodate their own internal
workflows. Moreover, users would like
to exercise some degree of control over
the nature and scope of information
they view in a personalized registration
system dashboard. The Copyright Office
is aware of similar requests from its own
staff, many of whom desire
customizable workflows to enhance
productivity and process efficiency,
which would result in improved
turnaround times for remitters.
At a global level, the Office is aware
that as mobile technology becomes
ubiquitous, an increasing number of
stakeholders desire to use mobile
devices to interact with the Office. To
that end, the Office is evaluating the
potential to deploy a mobile optimized
web interface, ‘‘apps’’ that support
popular mobile platforms, and the
development of an application program
interface (API) that can be utilized
within third party applications.
The Office has also heard that many
of its users would benefit from
improved tracking capabilities.
Remitters have indicated that the
existing electronic registration process
is cumbersome and are oftentimes
uncertain of their progress within the
application process; to improve that
aspect of the system, they have
suggested that the Office implement a
visual representation of the registration
workflow and the user’s status within it
(e.g., a status bar).
Beyond improvements to the
registration functions, the Office is
aware of opportunities for improvement
to its public record search capabilities.
Stakeholders have indicated that the
Office’s search function should be more
robust, allowing for more search criteria,
refining the display of the search
results, adding filters, and generally
making the search functionality more
user-friendly. Representatives from
interested parties also suggested the
VerDate Mar<15>2010
18:27 Mar 21, 2013
Jkt 229001
Copyright Office make it easier to
provide updates to the public record to
ensure the data maintained is accurate
and up to date (e.g., address changes).
The Office is thus investigating methods
of secure and effective data sharing
between interested parties and the
Copyright Office in order to determine
if such functionality can be
implemented in a manner that ensures
integrity of the Office’s records.
The Office is also aware of the need
for long-term, scalable data storage and
archiving capability to accommodate the
growing volume of digital works that the
Office receives. The Office has received
recommendations to centralize the
various information clusters internally
within the Copyright Office to a central
data repository and establish a central
data warehouse. Implementing such a
warehouse presents a series of
challenges that the Office seeks to learn
more about, including determining
scalable infrastructure solutions to
accommodate vast amounts of data,
analyzing data standards needed to
establish a central data model, and
evaluating potential data archival
strategies.
One recommendation that the Office
frequently hears, and one that underlies
many of the areas of improvement noted
above, is the need for bulk data transfer
between the Office and interested
outside parties. Such transfer
mechanisms would allow more
widespread distribution of the Office’s
records, as well as permit remitters to
submit large quantities of electronic
material and associated application data
to the Office. Such ‘‘system-to-system’’
or ‘‘business-to-business’’ capabilities
are a central area of inquiry for the
Office. Interested parties have suggested
that the Office expose data portals
enabled to facilitate data exchange over
standards-based protocols such as
ebMS, SOAP, and AS4.
In support of potential bulk data
transfer capabilities, the Office is
investigating specific data exchange
standards, including those that already
exist as well as the potential for
developing a new standard based upon
the needs of the Office’s constituents.
Interested parties have told the Office
that it should continue to take an active
role and adopt existing standards that
support data exchange between the
Office and its stakeholders. This
includes defining or adopting metadata
standards that support particular
industries (e.g., IPTC for photography;
ISRC for sound recordings; ONIX for
books). Further, standards such as
CISAC’s Common Works Registration
(CWR) and DDEX digital supply chain
standards should be considered to help
PO 00000
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Fmt 4703
Sfmt 4703
17723
develop the Office’s ability to provide
better business-to-business data
transfers. Interested parties have
suggested that the Copyright Office
publish a recognized list of data
standards so that users are able to
establish systems that support more
efficient interactions with the Copyright
Office.
III. Subjects of Inquiry
The Copyright Office is currently
evaluating what the ‘‘next generation’’
of its electronic services should look
like. Through a comprehensive
evaluation of its current technical
processing capabilities, and extensive
interaction with stakeholders, the Office
hopes to develop a complete picture of
how the Office currently supports the
needs of the copyright community, and
where its systems and services could be
improved. The Office hopes to achieve
a greater understanding of current
technical challenges facing the
copyright community as well as gain a
comprehensive understanding of how
the community hopes to conduct
business with the Copyright Office in
the future. This evaluation process,
which is tied to special projects detailed
in Priorities and Special Projects of the
U.S. Copyright Office released by the
Register of Copyrights in October 2011,
is intended to inform the development
of the Office’s next five-year strategic
plan that will commence in October
2013 and guide, among other things, the
technological evolution of the Copyright
Office. That plan will, in turn, inform
the Library of Congress’s overarching
strategic plan.
Because the Office’s evaluation of its
technology platform is intended to be a
wide-ranging review of existing
capabilities and future possibilities, the
Office seeks comments that present
conceptual frameworks with concrete
examples of future potential
applications or services. Broadly, the
Office seeks comments on (1) how
stakeholders use the current online
offerings of the Copyright Office,
especially with respect to registration
and recorded documents, and how the
current offerings meet, fail to meet, or
exceed user expectations; and (2) how
stakeholders would like to interact with
the Copyright Office electronically in
the future, or, put differently, what
online services, or aspects of existing
online services stakeholders would like
to see.
Although the Office welcomes
comments on the wide range of topics
germane to this inquiry, it is particularly
interested in comments that address: (1)
The nature and capabilities of the
Copyright Office’s public portals (e.g.,
E:\FR\FM\22MRN1.SGM
22MRN1
17724
Federal Register / Vol. 78, No. 56 / Friday, March 22, 2013 / Notices
for electronic registration services),
including interface-based portals as well
as business-to-business portals, or
access to Copyright Office services or
data through application program
interfaces; (2) the nature and scope of
information captured during the course
of the registration and recordation
processes, including that which could
be captured through user input, or
through metadata harvesting; (3)
metadata standards in particular
industries that the Copyright Office
might adopt or incorporate into its
systems (e.g., IPTC for photography;
ISRC for sound recordings; ONIX for
books); (4) data storage and security
standards for electronic copyright
deposits, including the development of
policies and best practices for data
retention and migration; (5) new ways of
searching and accessing registration and
recordation data and/or registration
deposit metadata (e.g., image or music
search technology); and (6) the
integration of third-party databases of
copyright ownership and licensing
information (such as those maintained
by collective management
organizations) and related technologies
with data maintained by the Copyright
Office.
Dated: March 18, 2013.
Maria A. Pallante,
Register of Copyrights, U.S. Copyright Office.
[FR Doc. 2013–06633 Filed 3–21–13; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 1410–30–P
DC 20555–0001; telephone: 301–415–
3667; email: Cindy.Bladey@nrc.gov.
Correction
In the FR of February 5, 2013, in FR
Doc. 2013–02352, on page 8202, first
column, correct the fourth full
paragraph to read:
Date of initial notice in Federal
Register: September 4, 2012 (77 FR
53927).
Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 18th day
of March, 2013.
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Cindy Bladey,
Chief, Rules, Announcements, and Directives
Branch, Division of Administrative Services,
Office of Administration.
[FR Doc. 2013–06545 Filed 3–21–13; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 7590–01–P
SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE
COMMISSION
[Investment Company Act Release No.
30427; File No. 812–14114]
Ivy Funds Variable Insurance
Portfolios, et al.; Notice of Application
March 15, 2013 .
Securities and Exchange
Commission (‘‘Commission’’).
ACTION: Notice of an application under
section 6(c) of the Investment Company
Act of 1940 (‘‘Act’’) for an exemption
from rule 12d1–2(a) under the Act.
AGENCY:
Applicants
request an order to permit open-end
management investment companies
relying on rule 12d1–2 under the Act to
invest in certain financial instruments.
APPLICANTS: Ivy Funds Variable
Insurance Portfolios (the ‘‘Trust’’),
Waddell & Reed Investment
Management Company (‘‘WRIMCO’’),
and Waddell & Reed, Inc. (‘‘W&R’’).
FILING DATES: The application was filed
on January 18, 2013.
HEARING OR NOTIFICATION OF HEARING: An
order granting the application will be
issued unless the Commission orders a
hearing. Interested persons may request
a hearing by writing to the
Commission’s Secretary and serving
applicants with a copy of the request,
personally or by mail. Hearing requests
should be received by the Commission
by 5:30 p.m. on April 9, 2013, and
should be accompanied by proof of
service on applicants, in the form of an
affidavit or, for lawyers, a certificate of
service. Hearing requests should state
the nature of the writer’s interest, the
reason for the request, and the issues
contested. Persons who wish to be
SUMMARY OF APPLICATION:
NUCLEAR REGULATORY
COMMISSION
[NRC–2013–0020]
Biweekly Notice; Applications and
Amendments to Facility Operating
Licenses and Combined Licenses
Involving No Significant Hazards
Considerations; Correction
Nuclear Regulatory
Commission.
ACTION: Notice; correction.
srobinson on DSK4SPTVN1PROD with NOTICES
AGENCY:
SUMMARY: The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission (NRC) is correcting a notice
that was published in the Federal
Register (FR) on February 5, 2013 (78
FR 8195), regarding the applications and
amendments to facility operating
licenses and combined licenses
involving no significant hazards
considerations. This action is necessary
to correct an erroneous date.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:
Cindy Bladey, Chief, Rules,
Announcements, and Directives Branch,
Office of Administration, U.S. Nuclear
Regulatory Commission, Washington,
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18:27 Mar 21, 2013
Jkt 229001
PO 00000
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Sfmt 4703
notified of a hearing may request
notification by writing to the
Commission’s Secretary.
ADDRESSES: Elizabeth M. Murphy,
Secretary, Securities and Exchange
Commission, 100 F Street NE.,
Washington, DC 20549–1090;
Applicants, 6300 Lamar Avenue,
Overland Park, Kansas 66202–4200.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:
Bruce R. MacNeil, Senior Counsel, at
(202) 551–6817, or Daniele Marchesani,
Branch Chief, at (202) 551–6821
(Division of Investment Management,
Office of Investment Company
Regulation).
The
following is a summary of the
application. The complete application
may be obtained via the Commission’s
Web site by searching for the file
number, or an applicant using the
Company name box, at https://
www.sec.gov/search/search.htm or by
calling (202) 551–8090.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
Applicants’ Representations
1. The Trust is a Delaware statutory
trust registered under the Act as an
open-end management investment
company. WRIMCO, a Kansas
corporation, is an investment adviser
registered under the Investment
Advisers Act of 1940, as amended (the
‘‘Advisers Act’’) and serves as
investment adviser to the Trust. W&R is
organized as a Delaware corporation,
and is a registered broker–dealer under
the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as
amended (‘‘1934 Act’’); W&R is the
principal underwriter of the Trust.
2. Applicants request the exemption
to the extent necessary to permit any
existing or future series of the Trust and
any other registered open-end
management investment company or
series thereof that (i) is advised by
WRIMCO or any person controlling,
controlled by or under common control
with WRIMCO (any such adviser or
WRIMCO, an ‘‘Adviser’’),1 (ii) is in the
same group of investment companies, as
defined in section 12(d)(1)(G) of the Act,
as the Trust and invests in other
registered open-end management
investment companies in that same
group (‘‘Underlying Funds’’) in reliance
on section 12(d)(1)(G) of the Act; and
(iii) is also eligible to invest in securities
(as defined in section 2(a)(36) of the
Act) in reliance on rule 12d1–2 under
the Act (each a ‘‘Fund of Funds’’), to
also invest, to the extent consistent with
its investment objectives, policies,
strategies and limitations, in financial
1 Any other Adviser also will be registered under
the Advisers Act.
E:\FR\FM\22MRN1.SGM
22MRN1
]]>Agencies
- Library of Congress
- U.S. Copyright Office
[Federal Register Volume 78, Number 56 (Friday, March 22, 2013)]
[Notices]
[Pages 17722-17724]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2013-06633]
=======================================================================
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
U.S. Copyright Office
[Docket No. 2013-2]
Technological Upgrades to Registration and Recordation Functions
AGENCY: U.S. Copyright Office, Library of Congress.
ACTION: Notice of Inquiry.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
SUMMARY: The United States Copyright Office (hereinafter Copyright
Office or Office) is in the process of identifying and evaluating
potential improvements and technical enhancements to the information
technology platforms that support its registration and recordation
functions, including its online registration system. These efforts are
part of the Office's ongoing special projects, commenced October 25,
2011 (available at the Office's Web site at www.copyright.gov/docs/priorities.pdf). The information garnered through this process has and
will continue to inform the development of the Copyright Office's long-
term strategic plan, scheduled to commence in October 2013.
At this time, the Office seeks comments regarding existing
capabilities and future possibilities. Broadly, the Office seeks
comments on (1) how stakeholders use the current online offerings of
the Copyright Office, especially with respect to registration and
recorded documents, and how the current offerings meet, fail to meet,
or exceed user expectations; and (2) how stakeholders would like to
interact with the Copyright Office electronically in the future, or,
put differently, what online services, or aspects of existing online
services stakeholders would like to see. The Office appreciates the
comments and suggestions of those who use the national registration and
recordation systems to protect their intellectual property, as well as
those who regularly use Copyright Office resources to identify
copyright owners, investigate the copyright status of works and the
public domain, and perform other research, including statistical
analysis on aggregated data sets.
DATES: Comments on the Notice of Inquiry and Requests for Comments are
due on or before May 21, 2013.
Submission: All comments shall be submitted electronically. A
comment page containing a comment form is posted on the Copyright
Office Web site at https://www.copyright.gov/docs/technical_upgrades.
The Web site interface requires submitters to complete a form
specifying name and organization, as applicable, and to upload comments
as an attachment via a browse button. To meet accessibility standards,
all comments must be uploaded in a single file in either the Portable
Document File (PDF) format that contains searchable, accessible text
(not an image); Microsoft Word; WordPerfect; Rich Text Format (RTF); or
ASCII text file format (not a scanned document). The maximum file size
is 6 megabytes (MB). The name of the submitter and organization should
appear on both the form and the face of the comments. All comments will
be posted publicly on the Copyright Office web site exactly as they are
received, along with names and organizations. If electronic submission
of comments is not feasible, please contact the Copyright Office at
202-707-8350 for special instructions.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Douglas Ament, Director of Information
Technology, Copyright, by email at uscotechupgrades@loc.gov;
Christopher S. Reed, Senior Advisor for Policy & Special Projects,
Office of the Register of Copyrights, by email at creed@loc.gov; or
call the U.S. Copyright Office by phone at 202-707-8350.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
I. Background
In 2000, the Copyright Office initiated a comprehensive business
process reengineering initiative intended to update the Office's
technology platform and improve operational efficiency. With the
assistance of outside consultants and business analysts, the Office
identified opportunities for efficiency enhancements and process
improvements. The most significant recommendation was to convert the
existing paper-based copyright registration system to an electronic
system, which included the development of related new business
processes and the automated production of public copyright records.
Funding available for the reengineering effort was limited and
decisions made by the Copyright Office and the greater Library were
necessarily constrained. Ultimately the Office implemented a commercial
off-the-shelf software package. The Office piloted the internal
business process functions of the software with a subset of
constituents in February 2005, followed by full implementation of the
Copyright Office's electronic processing system in August 2007. The
public-facing electronic registration system--the system that enables
copyright registration applicants to submit materials online--was
launched in July 2008. The Office implemented a significant upgrade to
its software and hardware platforms in August 2010, and implemented
periodic upgrades and enhancements to accommodate the needs of the
system's stakeholders--namely those that submit materials for
registration, those that search the Copyright Office database for
copyright ownership information, and the Copyright Office's staff that
process and examine copyright claims.
Today, more than eighty percent of the Office's applications for
copyright registration come through the electronic system,
demonstrating the copyright community's widespread interest in
electronic registration functions. Although the current system, and the
periodic upgrades and enhancements, have allowed the Office to maintain
a functional electronic platform for many types of works, there is room
for substantial improvement. Notably, the Office's recordation services
were included in the initial reengineering plan, but were later dropped
for budgetary reasons. Recordation processes are, thus, still paper-
based and are a top concern of the Copyright Office. Thus, the Office's
current systems represent the ``first generation'' of the Office's
electronic processing capabilities.
II. Discussion
In recent months, project leaders from the Copyright Office have
engaged copyright owners, users of copyright records, technical
experts, public interest organizations, and lawyers,
[[Page 17723]]
including through professional associations and small businesses to
participate in a series of focused discussions on issues relating to
the Office's platforms for registration, document recordation, and
public access to copyright ownership information. Through these
discussions, as well as through its own expert analysis, the Office has
identified a number of areas in which the current electronic system
could be improved. For example, numerous interested parties have
observed that the current user interface for electronic registration is
a challenge to navigate. Users have told the Office that it would be
helpful to be able to customize the user interface and workflow in
order to streamline the registration process to accommodate their own
internal workflows. Moreover, users would like to exercise some degree
of control over the nature and scope of information they view in a
personalized registration system dashboard. The Copyright Office is
aware of similar requests from its own staff, many of whom desire
customizable workflows to enhance productivity and process efficiency,
which would result in improved turnaround times for remitters.
At a global level, the Office is aware that as mobile technology
becomes ubiquitous, an increasing number of stakeholders desire to use
mobile devices to interact with the Office. To that end, the Office is
evaluating the potential to deploy a mobile optimized web interface,
``apps'' that support popular mobile platforms, and the development of
an application program interface (API) that can be utilized within
third party applications.
The Office has also heard that many of its users would benefit from
improved tracking capabilities. Remitters have indicated that the
existing electronic registration process is cumbersome and are
oftentimes uncertain of their progress within the application process;
to improve that aspect of the system, they have suggested that the
Office implement a visual representation of the registration workflow
and the user's status within it (e.g., a status bar).
Beyond improvements to the registration functions, the Office is
aware of opportunities for improvement to its public record search
capabilities. Stakeholders have indicated that the Office's search
function should be more robust, allowing for more search criteria,
refining the display of the search results, adding filters, and
generally making the search functionality more user-friendly.
Representatives from interested parties also suggested the Copyright
Office make it easier to provide updates to the public record to ensure
the data maintained is accurate and up to date (e.g., address changes).
The Office is thus investigating methods of secure and effective data
sharing between interested parties and the Copyright Office in order to
determine if such functionality can be implemented in a manner that
ensures integrity of the Office's records.
The Office is also aware of the need for long-term, scalable data
storage and archiving capability to accommodate the growing volume of
digital works that the Office receives. The Office has received
recommendations to centralize the various information clusters
internally within the Copyright Office to a central data repository and
establish a central data warehouse. Implementing such a warehouse
presents a series of challenges that the Office seeks to learn more
about, including determining scalable infrastructure solutions to
accommodate vast amounts of data, analyzing data standards needed to
establish a central data model, and evaluating potential data archival
strategies.
One recommendation that the Office frequently hears, and one that
underlies many of the areas of improvement noted above, is the need for
bulk data transfer between the Office and interested outside parties.
Such transfer mechanisms would allow more widespread distribution of
the Office's records, as well as permit remitters to submit large
quantities of electronic material and associated application data to
the Office. Such ``system-to-system'' or ``business-to-business''
capabilities are a central area of inquiry for the Office. Interested
parties have suggested that the Office expose data portals enabled to
facilitate data exchange over standards-based protocols such as ebMS,
SOAP, and AS4.
In support of potential bulk data transfer capabilities, the Office
is investigating specific data exchange standards, including those that
already exist as well as the potential for developing a new standard
based upon the needs of the Office's constituents. Interested parties
have told the Office that it should continue to take an active role and
adopt existing standards that support data exchange between the Office
and its stakeholders. This includes defining or adopting metadata
standards that support particular industries (e.g., IPTC for
photography; ISRC for sound recordings; ONIX for books). Further,
standards such as CISAC's Common Works Registration (CWR) and DDEX
digital supply chain standards should be considered to help develop the
Office's ability to provide better business-to-business data transfers.
Interested parties have suggested that the Copyright Office publish a
recognized list of data standards so that users are able to establish
systems that support more efficient interactions with the Copyright
Office.
III. Subjects of Inquiry
The Copyright Office is currently evaluating what the ``next
generation'' of its electronic services should look like. Through a
comprehensive evaluation of its current technical processing
capabilities, and extensive interaction with stakeholders, the Office
hopes to develop a complete picture of how the Office currently
supports the needs of the copyright community, and where its systems
and services could be improved. The Office hopes to achieve a greater
understanding of current technical challenges facing the copyright
community as well as gain a comprehensive understanding of how the
community hopes to conduct business with the Copyright Office in the
future. This evaluation process, which is tied to special projects
detailed in Priorities and Special Projects of the U.S. Copyright
Office released by the Register of Copyrights in October 2011, is
intended to inform the development of the Office's next five-year
strategic plan that will commence in October 2013 and guide, among
other things, the technological evolution of the Copyright Office. That
plan will, in turn, inform the Library of Congress's overarching
strategic plan.
Because the Office's evaluation of its technology platform is
intended to be a wide-ranging review of existing capabilities and
future possibilities, the Office seeks comments that present conceptual
frameworks with concrete examples of future potential applications or
services. Broadly, the Office seeks comments on (1) how stakeholders
use the current online offerings of the Copyright Office, especially
with respect to registration and recorded documents, and how the
current offerings meet, fail to meet, or exceed user expectations; and
(2) how stakeholders would like to interact with the Copyright Office
electronically in the future, or, put differently, what online
services, or aspects of existing online services stakeholders would
like to see.
Although the Office welcomes comments on the wide range of topics
germane to this inquiry, it is particularly interested in comments that
address: (1) The nature and capabilities of the Copyright Office's
public portals (e.g.,
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for electronic registration services), including interface-based
portals as well as business-to-business portals, or access to Copyright
Office services or data through application program interfaces; (2) the
nature and scope of information captured during the course of the
registration and recordation processes, including that which could be
captured through user input, or through metadata harvesting; (3)
metadata standards in particular industries that the Copyright Office
might adopt or incorporate into its systems (e.g., IPTC for
photography; ISRC for sound recordings; ONIX for books); (4) data
storage and security standards for electronic copyright deposits,
including the development of policies and best practices for data
retention and migration; (5) new ways of searching and accessing
registration and recordation data and/or registration deposit metadata
(e.g., image or music search technology); and (6) the integration of
third-party databases of copyright ownership and licensing information
(such as those maintained by collective management organizations) and
related technologies with data maintained by the Copyright Office.
Dated: March 18, 2013.
Maria A. Pallante,
Register of Copyrights, U.S. Copyright Office.
[FR Doc. 2013-06633 Filed 3-21-13; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 1410-30-P
