Discontinuance of Form CO in Registration Practices, 18705-18707 [2012-7429]
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Federal Register / Vol. 77, No. 60 / Wednesday, March 28, 2012 / Rules and Regulations
to the public interest. For similar
reasons and in order to minimize
disruptions in the Office’s educational
activities, the Register finds that there is
good cause to make the rule effective
immediately upon publication.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
List of Subjects in 37 CFR Part 201
Discontinuance of Form CO in
Registration Practices
Copyright, General provisions.
Copyright Office
37 CFR Parts 201 and 202
[Docket No. 2011–8]
Copyright Office, Library of
Congress.
ACTION: Final rule.
Final Rule
AGENCY:
In consideration of the foregoing, part
201 of 37 CFR chapter II is amended as
follows:
SUMMARY:
PART 201—GENERAL PROVISIONS
1. The authority citation for part 201
continues to read as follows:
■
Authority: 17 U.S.C. 702.
2 Amend § 201.3 as follows:
■ a. In paragraph (b)(2) by removing
‘‘708(a)(10)’’ and adding ‘‘708(a)’’ in its
place.
■ b. By adding new paragraph (f) as
follows:
■
§ 201.3 Fees for registration, recordation,
and related services, special services, and
services performed by the Licensing
Division.
*
*
*
*
*
(f) Fees for travel in connection with
educational activities. For travel
expenses in connection with Copyright
Office educational activities when
participation by Copyright Office
personnel has been requested by
another organization or person and that
organization or person has agreed to pay
such expenses, collection of the fee
shall be subject to, and the amount of
the fee shall be no greater than, the
amount authorized under the Federal
Travel Regulations found in Chapters
300 through 304 of Title 41.
Dated: March 12, 2012.
Maria A. Pallante,
Register of Copyrights.
Dated: March 19, 2012.
Approved by:
James H. Billington,
The Librarian of Congress.
[FR Doc. 2012–7427 Filed 3–27–12; 8:45 am]
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The United States Copyright
Office is amending its regulations in
order to discontinue use of the Form CO
application as an option for applying for
copyright registration, and in order to
remove references to CON 1 and CON 2
continuation sheets. The removal of
Form CO leaves applicants a choice of
filing an application for registration
electronically or by using the
appropriate printed application form
relating to the subject matter of the
application. The amendment also
removes the references to CON 1 and
CON 2 continuation sheets, which were
never developed or made available to
the public; the regulations instead now
refer only to the continuation sheets
currently available for applicants filing
paper applications and makes other
housekeeping amendments relating to
applications for copyright registration.
DATES: Effective Date: July 1, 2012.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:
Tanya Sandros, Deputy General
Counsel, Copyright Office, GC/I&R, P.O.
Box 70400, Washington, DC 20024.
Telephone: (202) 707–8380. Telefax:
(202) 707–8366. All prior Federal
Register notices and comments in this
docket are available at https://
www.copyright.gov/docs/formco/.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
Background
In 2007, the Copyright Office began an
extensive business process
reengineering initiative that had an
impact on a variety of registrationrelated activities. See 72 FR 36883 (July
6, 2007). As part of this initiative, the
Office promulgated interim regulations
regarding how the public submits and
the Office processes copyright
applications. In these interim
regulations, the Office announced four
ways to file an application for
registration. At the time, the Office used
the term ‘‘Form CO’’ generically in its
regulations to cover all four approaches
to registration. With the implementation
of the new electronic registration
practices, however, Form CO was used
to describe a specific form that is filled
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18705
out on a computer and that uses
barcodes to capture the information
entered by the person filling out the
form. After completing the form, the
applicant prints it out and submits the
paper form to the Copyright Office. This
newer incarnation of Form CO, first
made available in 2008, was intended to
simplify the application process and
replace the traditional paper Forms TX,
VA, PA, SR, and SE. See 72 FR at 36885;
37 CFR 202.3(b)(2)(ii). However,
following the implementation of
reengineering, it eventually became
clear (for reasons discussed below) that
Form CO did not live up to its
expectations because many users of the
form made entries on the form that were
not captured in the barcodes and
therefore were not carried over into the
Office’s registration records and because
of problems with printing the forms.
The regulations promulgated in 2007
also referred to two additional
continuation sheets, CON 1 and CON 2,
which the Office intended to be used in
connection with Form CO and which
would have allowed applicants to
provide additional information that
would not fit within the barcodes to be
generated by Form CO. See 72 FR at
36886. However, the Office never
developed these new continuation
sheets and continued to accept the
traditional Form CON for the provision
of additional information. See https://
www.copyright.gov/forms/formcon.pdf.
On September 30, 2011, the Copyright
Office published a notice of proposed
rulemaking and request for comments in
regard to Form CO, CON 1, and CON 2.
76 FR 60774. The Office proposed
eliminating Form CO as an application
option and removing references to CON
1 and CON 2. Form CO, the Office
pointed out, is not widely used, but it
does present a disproportionate number
of problems for the Office. As is
explained in greater detail in the notice
of proposed rulemaking, when
applicants find they need to amend
information on Form CO after preparing
and printing the form but before
submitting it, they frequently make
changes by writing directly on the form
rather than redoing or revising the form
correctly online. As a result, additional
time and resources are required for the
Office to manually input the amended
information into the system, or it may
be missed in the ingestion process
altogether. Either way, the added time
required to detect and correct these
problems defeats all the efficiencies
promised by this technology.
Nor is human error the only concern.
The notice of proposed rulemaking also
noted that the use of barcodes presents
other unique problems associated with
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Federal Register / Vol. 77, No. 60 / Wednesday, March 28, 2012 / Rules and Regulations
the technology. Barcodes can be
compromised and fail to function
properly, e.g., due to distortion in the
printing of the application, or due to
tears in the portion of the page on which
the barcode appears. In such cases the
information on a Form CO application
must be manually entered into the
online registration system.
In addition to proposing the
elimination of Form CO, the Office
proposed amending its regulations to
remove references to continuation
sheets for use with Form CO—CON 1
and CON 2—because the Copyright
Office never created these specialized
forms.
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Comments
The Office received two comments in
response to its notice of proposed
rulemaking one in support of the
proposal to eliminate Form CO and the
other in support of maintaining it
Author Services, Inc. writing in support
of the Office’s proposal to eliminate
Form CO, stated that its use is ‘‘likely
to cause errors and lengthen the
examination process.’’ Attorney Joshua
Kaufman, on the other hand, opposed
elimination of Form CO. He argued that
the electronic filing system is ‘‘clunky,
cumbersome and takes a great deal of
time,’’ and stated that the system does
not provide a copy of the application
suitable for the applicant’s file and for
subsequent review. The alternative to
electronic filing—using forms specific to
various types of works—was also
insufficient, maintained Mr. Kaufman,
because these forms take over a year to
process and are more expensive than
electronic registration.
Discussion
Form CO represents a very small
percentage of applications received by
the Office—approximately two percent
of applications submitted since January
2011 have been submitted on Form CO.
Eliminating Form CO will simplify the
registration process for the Copyright
Office and leave applicants with two
options to register their works. They
may submit applications for registration
electronically or they may use the paper
forms (Forms TX, PA, VA, SR, and SE.,
or the Short Forms TX, PA, VA or SE
if appropriate). Applications submitted
electronically are less expensive and
this option allows for a quicker
turnaround time. Currently, these
applications are processed on average in
three months. The Office has also
reduced the time it takes to process a
paper application, completing the
process on average in 10 months.
However, the key benefit gained in
eliminating Form CO is the savings in
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resources which the Office now spends
on reviewing each Form CO to ensure
the accuracy of the Form CO
information embedded in the barcode.
While Mr. Kaufman’s lone voice in
favor of maintaining Form CO does not
provide a strong reason for the Office to
continue to offer this option for
registration, he does raise three issues
that the Office, for the sake of clarity,
wishes to address. First, the Office is
aware that improvements are needed to
make the online registration system
more user-friendly and less timeconsuming and, for that reason, the
Office is committed to making it as easy
and efficient as possible. To that end,
the Register has made the evaluation of
technical upgrades to the current
electronic deposit system a major
priority over the next 18 months, a
process that includes significant
involvement from remitters and
technical experts. See Priorities and
Special Projects of the United States
Copyright Office (https://
www.copyright.gov/docs/priorities.pdf)
at 13. Also, contrary to Mr. Kaufman’s
assertion, a reviewable copy of an
electronic application is available to
applicants after successful fee payment.
Using the ‘‘My Applications’’ link, an
applicant can view and print a copy of
the certificate preview displaying all the
information entered by the applicant
under the corresponding headings.
Finally, regarding the use of paper forms
instead of electronic registration, the
Office notes that while paper
registration is more expensive and does
take longer, the processing time for
these applications has been steadily
declining. As noted above, the current
average processing time for a paper
application is 10 months, not a year or
longer.
For the reasons set forth above and
because there is little support for
maintaining Form CO, the Office has
concluded that the use of Form CO
should be discontinued. In addition,
because the Office is discontinuing
Form CO and never created the CON 1
and CON 2 forms that were to be used
with Form CO, the Office is amending
its regulations to remove references to
the CON 1 and CON 2 forms. Note,
however, that those applicants using
paper applications may continue to use
existing Form CON. See https://
www.copyright.gov/forms/formcon.pdf.
As a related point of clarity, the Office
is also amending § 202.3(b)(10)(iv)(D)
and (v) of the regulations, relating to
group registration of published
photographs, to clarify that the
references therein to ‘‘special
continuation sheet’’ are references to
Form DR/PPh/CON.
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Effective Date
Beginning July 1, 2012, the Copyright
Office will no longer accept Form CO
applications for registration. Upon
receipt of a Form CO on or after July 1,
2012, the Office will notify the remitter
that it has received an incomplete
submission for registration and that the
remitter may complete the submission
by providing a completed ‘‘Form TX’’;
‘‘Form PA’’; ‘‘Form VA’’; ‘‘Form SR’’;
‘‘Form SE.,’’ or the short form versions
of Forms TX, PA, VA or SE as
appropriate, along with any applicable
short fee. The effective date of
registration for the claim will be the
date the Office receives a complete
submission, including an acceptable
form, the appropriate fee and the
deposit. Should the remitter fail to
provide the correct form and additional
fee within 30 days, the Office will close
the claim and retain the initial fee to
cover the administrative costs of
processing the incomplete submission.
Housekeeping Amendments
The Office also takes this opportunity
to make three additional amendments to
its regulations. First, the Office is
amending § 201.3(c) to clarify that the
$35 fee for an electronic filing listed in
item 2 applies only to the electronic
submission of applications for group
registration of photographs and for
registration of automated databases that
predominantly consist of photographs
and updates to these databases. See 76
FR 4072 (January 24, 2011) and 76 FR
5106 (January 28, 2011). While the
Office had anticipated providing an
online option for group registration of
contributions to periodicals, this option
still requires further testing and
evaluation and is not currently offered.
Second, the Office is amending
§ 202.2(b)(1) which incorrectly
identifies the appropriate copyright
notice on a sound recording as a ‘‘©.’’
The technical amendment corrects this
error and identifies the correct notice for
a sound recording as a ‘‘b.’’
Finally, the Office is amending
§ 202.3(b)(2)(ii) to include specific
references to the short forms of several
standard applications for registration
and to indicate the circumstances under
which these forms are used today. The
conditions for use of the short forms are
explained in the instructions
accompanying Short Form PA, Short
Form TX, Short Form VA, and Short
Form SE. Thus, the proposed
amendment merely clarifies the
longstanding practice of the Office to
accept short form applications, provided
that the claim meets the conditions
outlined in the instructions to the forms.
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List of Subjects
§ 202.3
37 CFR Part 201
*
Copyright, General provisions.
37 CFR Part 202
Copyright, Registration of claims to
registration.
Final Regulations
In consideration of the foregoing, the
Copyright Office amends parts 201 and
202 of 37 CFR, as follows:
PART 201—GENERAL PROVISIONS
1. The authority citation for part 201
continues to read as follows:
■
Authority: 17 U.S.C. 702.
§ 201.3
[Amended]
2. Amend § 201.3(c) as follows:
a. By removing the line beginning
‘‘Form-D barcode application properly
completed online) * * *’’ and the
phrase ‘‘; and Form CO without
barcodes or incomplete information, or
information added after printing (paper
filing)’’ from item (1) of the fee chart
titled ‘‘Registration, Recordation and
Related Services.’’
■ b. By adding ‘‘of automated databases
that predominantly consist of
photographs and updates thereto or
group registration of published
photographs’’ after ‘‘electronic filing’’ in
item (2) of the fee chart titled
‘‘Registration, Recordation and Related
Services.’’
■
■
PART 202—PREREGISTRATION AND
REGISTRATION OF CLAIMS TO
COPYRIGHT
3. The authority citation for part 202
reads as follows:
■
Authority: 17 U.S.C. 409 and 702.
§ 202.2
[Amended]
4. Amend § 202.2(b)(1) by removing
‘‘©’’ after ‘‘in the case of a sound
recording, the symbol’’ and adding ‘‘b’’
in its place.
■ 5. Amend § 202.3 by:
■ a. Revising paragraphs (b)(2) and
(b)(3).
■ b. In paragraphs (b)(10)(iv)(D) and
(b)(10)(v) by adding ‘‘(Form GR/PPh/
CON)’’ after the phrase ‘‘special
continuation sheet’’ wherever it
appears.
■ c. In paragraph (c)(2) introductory text
by removing ‘‘, electronically or in
printed form, on the appropriate form
prescribed by the Register of Copyrights
under’’ and by adding ‘‘by using one of
the methods set forth in’’ in its place.
■ d. By resdesignating footnotes 3
through 6 as footnotes 2 through 5.
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Registration of copyright.
*
*
*
*
(b) * * *
(2) Submission of application for
registration. For purposes of
registration, an applicant may submit an
application for registration of individual
works and certain groups of works
electronically through the Copyright
Office’s Web site, or by using the
printed forms prescribed by the Register
of Copyrights.
(i) An applicant may submit an
application electronically through the
Copyright Office Web site
[www.copyright.gov]. An online
submission requires a payment of the
application fee through an electronic
fund transfer, credit or debit card, or
through a Copyright Office deposit
account. Deposit materials in support of
the online application may be submitted
electronically in a digital format along
with the application and payment, or
deposit materials in physically tangible
formats may be separately mailed to the
Copyright Office, using a mailing label
generated during the online registration
process, or
(ii) (A) Alternatively, an applicant
may submit an application on one of the
printed forms prescribed by the Register
of Copyrights. Each printed form
corresponds to a class set forth in
paragraph (b)(1) of this section and is so
designated (‘‘Form TX’’; ‘‘Short Form
TX’’, ‘‘Form PA’’; ‘‘Short Form PA’’,
‘‘Form VA’’; ‘‘Short Form VA’’, ‘‘Form
SR’’; ‘‘Form SE’’; ‘‘Short Form SE’’, and
‘‘Form SE/Group’’).
(B) Short form applications may only
be used if certain conditions are met.
Short Form TX, Short Form PA, and
Short Form VA may be used only to
register a single work in a case when a
living author who is the only author of
his or her work is the sole owner of the
copyright in the work, the work is not
a compilation or derivative work
containing a substantial amount of
previously published or registered
material, and the work is not a work
made for hire. Short Form SE may be
used only if the claim is in a collective
work, the work is essentially an all-new
collective work or issue, the author is a
citizen or domiciliary of the United
States, the work is a work for hire, the
author(s) and claimant(s) are the same
person(s) or organization(s), and the
work was first published in the United
States.
(C) Printed form applications should
be submitted in the class most
appropriate to the nature of the
authorship in which copyright is
claimed. In the case of contributions to
collective works, applications should be
submitted in the class representing the
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18707
copyrightable authorship in the
contribution. In the case of derivative
works, applications should be submitted
in the class most appropriately
representing the copyrightable
authorship involved in recasting,
transforming, adapting, or otherwise
modifying the preexisting work. In cases
where a work contains elements of
authorship in which copyright is
claimed which fall into two or more
classes, the application should be
submitted in the class most appropriate
to the type of authorship that
predominates in the work as a whole.
However, in any case where registration
is sought for a work consisting of or
including a sound recording in which
copyright is claimed, the application
shall be submitted on Form SR.
(D) Copies of the printed forms are
available on the Copyright Office’s Web
site [www.copyright.gov] and upon
request to the Copyright Public
Information Office, Library of Congress.
Printed form applications may be
completed and submitted by completing
a printed version or using a PDF version
of the applicable Copyright Office
application form and mailing it together
with the other required elements, i.e.,
physically tangible deposit copies
and/or materials, and the required filing
fee, all elements being placed in the
same package and sent by mail or handdelivered to the Copyright Office.
(3) Continuation sheets. A
continuation sheet (Form CON) is
appropriate only in the case when a
printed form application is used and
where additional space is needed by the
applicant to provide all relevant
information concerning a claim to
copyright. An application may include
more than one continuation sheet,
subject to the limitations in paragraph
(b)(10)(v) of this section.
*
*
*
*
*
Dated: March 12, 2012.
Maria A. Pallante,
Register of Copyrights.
Dated: March 19, 2012.
James H. Billington,
The Librarian of Congress.
[FR Doc. 2012–7429 Filed 3–27–12; 8:45 am]
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[Federal Register Volume 77, Number 60 (Wednesday, March 28, 2012)]
[Rules and Regulations]
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[FR Doc No: 2012-7429]
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
Copyright Office
37 CFR Parts 201 and 202
[Docket No. 2011-8]
Discontinuance of Form CO in Registration Practices
AGENCY: Copyright Office, Library of Congress.
ACTION: Final rule.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
SUMMARY: The United States Copyright Office is amending its regulations
in order to discontinue use of the Form CO application as an option for
applying for copyright registration, and in order to remove references
to CON 1 and CON 2 continuation sheets. The removal of Form CO leaves
applicants a choice of filing an application for registration
electronically or by using the appropriate printed application form
relating to the subject matter of the application. The amendment also
removes the references to CON 1 and CON 2 continuation sheets, which
were never developed or made available to the public; the regulations
instead now refer only to the continuation sheets currently available
for applicants filing paper applications and makes other housekeeping
amendments relating to applications for copyright registration.
DATES: Effective Date: July 1, 2012.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Tanya Sandros, Deputy General Counsel,
Copyright Office, GC/I&R, P.O. Box 70400, Washington, DC 20024.
Telephone: (202) 707-8380. Telefax: (202) 707-8366. All prior Federal
Register notices and comments in this docket are available at https://www.copyright.gov/docs/formco/.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
Background
In 2007, the Copyright Office began an extensive business process
reengineering initiative that had an impact on a variety of
registration-related activities. See 72 FR 36883 (July 6, 2007). As
part of this initiative, the Office promulgated interim regulations
regarding how the public submits and the Office processes copyright
applications. In these interim regulations, the Office announced four
ways to file an application for registration. At the time, the Office
used the term ``Form CO'' generically in its regulations to cover all
four approaches to registration. With the implementation of the new
electronic registration practices, however, Form CO was used to
describe a specific form that is filled out on a computer and that uses
barcodes to capture the information entered by the person filling out
the form. After completing the form, the applicant prints it out and
submits the paper form to the Copyright Office. This newer incarnation
of Form CO, first made available in 2008, was intended to simplify the
application process and replace the traditional paper Forms TX, VA, PA,
SR, and SE. See 72 FR at 36885; 37 CFR 202.3(b)(2)(ii). However,
following the implementation of reengineering, it eventually became
clear (for reasons discussed below) that Form CO did not live up to its
expectations because many users of the form made entries on the form
that were not captured in the barcodes and therefore were not carried
over into the Office's registration records and because of problems
with printing the forms.
The regulations promulgated in 2007 also referred to two additional
continuation sheets, CON 1 and CON 2, which the Office intended to be
used in connection with Form CO and which would have allowed applicants
to provide additional information that would not fit within the
barcodes to be generated by Form CO. See 72 FR at 36886. However, the
Office never developed these new continuation sheets and continued to
accept the traditional Form CON for the provision of additional
information. See https://www.copyright.gov/forms/formcon.pdf.
On September 30, 2011, the Copyright Office published a notice of
proposed rulemaking and request for comments in regard to Form CO, CON
1, and CON 2. 76 FR 60774. The Office proposed eliminating Form CO as
an application option and removing references to CON 1 and CON 2. Form
CO, the Office pointed out, is not widely used, but it does present a
disproportionate number of problems for the Office. As is explained in
greater detail in the notice of proposed rulemaking, when applicants
find they need to amend information on Form CO after preparing and
printing the form but before submitting it, they frequently make
changes by writing directly on the form rather than redoing or revising
the form correctly online. As a result, additional time and resources
are required for the Office to manually input the amended information
into the system, or it may be missed in the ingestion process
altogether. Either way, the added time required to detect and correct
these problems defeats all the efficiencies promised by this
technology.
Nor is human error the only concern. The notice of proposed
rulemaking also noted that the use of barcodes presents other unique
problems associated with
[[Page 18706]]
the technology. Barcodes can be compromised and fail to function
properly, e.g., due to distortion in the printing of the application,
or due to tears in the portion of the page on which the barcode
appears. In such cases the information on a Form CO application must be
manually entered into the online registration system.
In addition to proposing the elimination of Form CO, the Office
proposed amending its regulations to remove references to continuation
sheets for use with Form CO--CON 1 and CON 2--because the Copyright
Office never created these specialized forms.
Comments
The Office received two comments in response to its notice of
proposed rulemaking one in support of the proposal to eliminate Form CO
and the other in support of maintaining it Author Services, Inc.
writing in support of the Office's proposal to eliminate Form CO,
stated that its use is ``likely to cause errors and lengthen the
examination process.'' Attorney Joshua Kaufman, on the other hand,
opposed elimination of Form CO. He argued that the electronic filing
system is ``clunky, cumbersome and takes a great deal of time,'' and
stated that the system does not provide a copy of the application
suitable for the applicant's file and for subsequent review. The
alternative to electronic filing--using forms specific to various types
of works--was also insufficient, maintained Mr. Kaufman, because these
forms take over a year to process and are more expensive than
electronic registration.
Discussion
Form CO represents a very small percentage of applications received
by the Office--approximately two percent of applications submitted
since January 2011 have been submitted on Form CO. Eliminating Form CO
will simplify the registration process for the Copyright Office and
leave applicants with two options to register their works. They may
submit applications for registration electronically or they may use the
paper forms (Forms TX, PA, VA, SR, and SE., or the Short Forms TX, PA,
VA or SE if appropriate). Applications submitted electronically are
less expensive and this option allows for a quicker turnaround time.
Currently, these applications are processed on average in three months.
The Office has also reduced the time it takes to process a paper
application, completing the process on average in 10 months. However,
the key benefit gained in eliminating Form CO is the savings in
resources which the Office now spends on reviewing each Form CO to
ensure the accuracy of the Form CO information embedded in the barcode.
While Mr. Kaufman's lone voice in favor of maintaining Form CO does
not provide a strong reason for the Office to continue to offer this
option for registration, he does raise three issues that the Office,
for the sake of clarity, wishes to address. First, the Office is aware
that improvements are needed to make the online registration system
more user-friendly and less time-consuming and, for that reason, the
Office is committed to making it as easy and efficient as possible. To
that end, the Register has made the evaluation of technical upgrades to
the current electronic deposit system a major priority over the next 18
months, a process that includes significant involvement from remitters
and technical experts. See Priorities and Special Projects of the
United States Copyright Office (https://www.copyright.gov/docs/priorities.pdf) at 13. Also, contrary to Mr. Kaufman's assertion, a
reviewable copy of an electronic application is available to applicants
after successful fee payment. Using the ``My Applications'' link, an
applicant can view and print a copy of the certificate preview
displaying all the information entered by the applicant under the
corresponding headings. Finally, regarding the use of paper forms
instead of electronic registration, the Office notes that while paper
registration is more expensive and does take longer, the processing
time for these applications has been steadily declining. As noted
above, the current average processing time for a paper application is
10 months, not a year or longer.
For the reasons set forth above and because there is little support
for maintaining Form CO, the Office has concluded that the use of Form
CO should be discontinued. In addition, because the Office is
discontinuing Form CO and never created the CON 1 and CON 2 forms that
were to be used with Form CO, the Office is amending its regulations to
remove references to the CON 1 and CON 2 forms. Note, however, that
those applicants using paper applications may continue to use existing
Form CON. See https://www.copyright.gov/forms/formcon.pdf. As a related
point of clarity, the Office is also amending Sec. 202.3(b)(10)(iv)(D)
and (v) of the regulations, relating to group registration of published
photographs, to clarify that the references therein to ``special
continuation sheet'' are references to Form DR/PPh/CON.
Effective Date
Beginning July 1, 2012, the Copyright Office will no longer accept
Form CO applications for registration. Upon receipt of a Form CO on or
after July 1, 2012, the Office will notify the remitter that it has
received an incomplete submission for registration and that the
remitter may complete the submission by providing a completed ``Form
TX''; ``Form PA''; ``Form VA''; ``Form SR''; ``Form SE.,'' or the short
form versions of Forms TX, PA, VA or SE as appropriate, along with any
applicable short fee. The effective date of registration for the claim
will be the date the Office receives a complete submission, including
an acceptable form, the appropriate fee and the deposit. Should the
remitter fail to provide the correct form and additional fee within 30
days, the Office will close the claim and retain the initial fee to
cover the administrative costs of processing the incomplete submission.
Housekeeping Amendments
The Office also takes this opportunity to make three additional
amendments to its regulations. First, the Office is amending Sec.
201.3(c) to clarify that the $35 fee for an electronic filing listed in
item 2 applies only to the electronic submission of applications for
group registration of photographs and for registration of automated
databases that predominantly consist of photographs and updates to
these databases. See 76 FR 4072 (January 24, 2011) and 76 FR 5106
(January 28, 2011). While the Office had anticipated providing an
online option for group registration of contributions to periodicals,
this option still requires further testing and evaluation and is not
currently offered.
Second, the Office is amending Sec. 202.2(b)(1) which incorrectly
identifies the appropriate copyright notice on a sound recording as a
``(copyright).'' The technical amendment corrects this error and
identifies the correct notice for a sound recording as a ``[ballot].''
Finally, the Office is amending Sec. 202.3(b)(2)(ii) to include
specific references to the short forms of several standard applications
for registration and to indicate the circumstances under which these
forms are used today. The conditions for use of the short forms are
explained in the instructions accompanying Short Form PA, Short Form
TX, Short Form VA, and Short Form SE. Thus, the proposed amendment
merely clarifies the longstanding practice of the Office to accept
short form applications, provided that the claim meets the conditions
outlined in the instructions to the forms.
[[Page 18707]]
List of Subjects
37 CFR Part 201
Copyright, General provisions.
37 CFR Part 202
Copyright, Registration of claims to registration.
Final Regulations
In consideration of the foregoing, the Copyright Office amends
parts 201 and 202 of 37 CFR, as follows:
PART 201--GENERAL PROVISIONS
0
1. The authority citation for part 201 continues to read as follows:
Authority: 17 U.S.C. 702.
Sec. 201.3 [Amended]
0
2. Amend Sec. 201.3(c) as follows:
0
a. By removing the line beginning ``Form-D barcode application properly
completed online) * * *'' and the phrase ``; and Form CO without
barcodes or incomplete information, or information added after printing
(paper filing)'' from item (1) of the fee chart titled ``Registration,
Recordation and Related Services.''
0
b. By adding ``of automated databases that predominantly consist of
photographs and updates thereto or group registration of published
photographs'' after ``electronic filing'' in item (2) of the fee chart
titled ``Registration, Recordation and Related Services.''
PART 202--PREREGISTRATION AND REGISTRATION OF CLAIMS TO COPYRIGHT
0
3. The authority citation for part 202 reads as follows:
Authority: 17 U.S.C. 409 and 702.
Sec. 202.2 [Amended]
0
4. Amend Sec. 202.2(b)(1) by removing ``(copyright)'' after ``in the
case of a sound recording, the symbol'' and adding ``[ballot]'' in its
place.
0
5. Amend Sec. 202.3 by:
0
a. Revising paragraphs (b)(2) and (b)(3).
0
b. In paragraphs (b)(10)(iv)(D) and (b)(10)(v) by adding ``(Form GR/
PPh/CON)'' after the phrase ``special continuation sheet'' wherever it
appears.
0
c. In paragraph (c)(2) introductory text by removing ``, electronically
or in printed form, on the appropriate form prescribed by the Register
of Copyrights under'' and by adding ``by using one of the methods set
forth in'' in its place.
0
d. By resdesignating footnotes 3 through 6 as footnotes 2 through 5.
Sec. 202.3 Registration of copyright.
* * * * *
(b) * * *
(2) Submission of application for registration. For purposes of
registration, an applicant may submit an application for registration
of individual works and certain groups of works electronically through
the Copyright Office's Web site, or by using the printed forms
prescribed by the Register of Copyrights.
(i) An applicant may submit an application electronically through
the Copyright Office Web site [www.copyright.gov]. An online submission
requires a payment of the application fee through an electronic fund
transfer, credit or debit card, or through a Copyright Office deposit
account. Deposit materials in support of the online application may be
submitted electronically in a digital format along with the application
and payment, or deposit materials in physically tangible formats may be
separately mailed to the Copyright Office, using a mailing label
generated during the online registration process, or
(ii) (A) Alternatively, an applicant may submit an application on
one of the printed forms prescribed by the Register of Copyrights. Each
printed form corresponds to a class set forth in paragraph (b)(1) of
this section and is so designated (``Form TX''; ``Short Form TX'',
``Form PA''; ``Short Form PA'', ``Form VA''; ``Short Form VA'', ``Form
SR''; ``Form SE''; ``Short Form SE'', and ``Form SE/Group'').
(B) Short form applications may only be used if certain conditions
are met. Short Form TX, Short Form PA, and Short Form VA may be used
only to register a single work in a case when a living author who is
the only author of his or her work is the sole owner of the copyright
in the work, the work is not a compilation or derivative work
containing a substantial amount of previously published or registered
material, and the work is not a work made for hire. Short Form SE may
be used only if the claim is in a collective work, the work is
essentially an all-new collective work or issue, the author is a
citizen or domiciliary of the United States, the work is a work for
hire, the author(s) and claimant(s) are the same person(s) or
organization(s), and the work was first published in the United States.
(C) Printed form applications should be submitted in the class most
appropriate to the nature of the authorship in which copyright is
claimed. In the case of contributions to collective works, applications
should be submitted in the class representing the copyrightable
authorship in the contribution. In the case of derivative works,
applications should be submitted in the class most appropriately
representing the copyrightable authorship involved in recasting,
transforming, adapting, or otherwise modifying the preexisting work. In
cases where a work contains elements of authorship in which copyright
is claimed which fall into two or more classes, the application should
be submitted in the class most appropriate to the type of authorship
that predominates in the work as a whole. However, in any case where
registration is sought for a work consisting of or including a sound
recording in which copyright is claimed, the application shall be
submitted on Form SR.
(D) Copies of the printed forms are available on the Copyright
Office's Web site [www.copyright.gov] and upon request to the Copyright
Public Information Office, Library of Congress. Printed form
applications may be completed and submitted by completing a printed
version or using a PDF version of the applicable Copyright Office
application form and mailing it together with the other required
elements, i.e., physically tangible deposit copies and/or materials,
and the required filing fee, all elements being placed in the same
package and sent by mail or hand-delivered to the Copyright Office.
(3) Continuation sheets. A continuation sheet (Form CON) is
appropriate only in the case when a printed form application is used
and where additional space is needed by the applicant to provide all
relevant information concerning a claim to copyright. An application
may include more than one continuation sheet, subject to the
limitations in paragraph (b)(10)(v) of this section.
* * * * *
Dated: March 12, 2012.
Maria A. Pallante,
Register of Copyrights.
Dated: March 19, 2012.
James H. Billington,
The Librarian of Congress.
[FR Doc. 2012-7429 Filed 3-27-12; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 1410-30-P