Copyright Office Technical Amendments

The Copyright Office has issued a final rule making technical changes to the regulations governing registration, recordation, licensing, and other services that the Office provides in parts 201-205, 210-212, and Subchapter B of title 37 of the Code of Federal Regulations. The amendments will improve the quality of the Office’s regulations by updating cross-references to the Copyright Act and the Office’s regulations, replacing outdated terminology, reflecting structural changes to the Office and its senior management, eliminating expired or obsolete provisions, and correcting nonsubstantive errors.

These changes include the Register’s efforts to reorganize the administrative divisions of the Office in the past few years. The rule also removes obsolete provisions that no longer serve any purpose, such as the regulations issued by the former Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel. Further, the rule increases the readability of the regulations for submitting requests under the Freedom of Information Act and the Privacy Act, the procedures for serving legal process on the Office, as well as the regulations governing the Office’s general operations.

The new regulations are effective March 8, 2017.