Copyright Office Proposes New Fee Schedule

The Copyright Act (‘‘Act’’) provides that the Register of Copyrights may adjust certain fees based upon a study of the costs incurred by the Copyright Office (“Office”) for the registration of claims, the recordation of documents, and the provision of services. 17 U.S.C. 708(b).

Since the Act was amended to provide for such adjustments, the Office has undertaken fee studies approximately every three years and made adjustments accordingly. The Office last adjusted fees in 2009. It is currently analyzing costs and corresponding fees and intends to propose a new fee schedule for public comment in the spring of this year.

At this time, the Office seeks public comment on two issues. First, with respect to the basic registration fee, should special consideration be provided to individual author-claimants registering a single work that is not a work made for hire?

Second, are there any special services and corresponding fees the Office should expand, improve or add to its offerings at this time, including, for example, additional expedited services and fee options for copyright owners and their representatives?

The Copyright Office therefore seeks comment from authors, copyright owners and the public in general as to whether, in its proposed new fee schedule, the Office should set a lower fee for an application to register a single work when the application is submitted by a person who is the sole author and the sole copyright owner of the work, the work is not a work made for hire, and the work does not contain material that was previously published or registered.

The fee would be lower than the registration fee for other applications in recognition of the lower cost in processing such simple applications as well as the need to encourage individual authors to register their copyrights. More complex registrations, such as those involving groups, collections, multiple titles, etc., require greater attention of Copyright Office staff (e.g., to ensure that the public database contains sufficient index terms and information) and therefore incur greater costs.

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