Requirements for Submitting Schedules of Pre-1972 Sound Recordings, Including Supplemental Schedules

A Schedule of Pre-1972 Sound Recordings (“Pre-1972 Schedule”) is a special type of document that owners of sound recordings fixed before February 15, 1972 (“Pre-1972 Sound Recordings”), may file with the Copyright Office in accordance with the instructions provided on this page. Under title 17, section 1401 extends remedies for copyright infringement to owners of Pre-1972 Sound Recordings. Rights owners may seek statutory damages and/or attorneys’ fees for the unauthorized use of Pre-1972 Sound Recordings if certain requirements are met. Rights owners typically must file schedules listing their Pre-1972 Sound Recordings with the Office, specifying the name of the rights owner, title, and featured artist for each sound recording. 17 U.S.C. § 1401(f)(5)(A). The Office then indexes these Pre-1972 Schedules and provides public notice of the filings through an online database. For information regarding eligibility for statutory damages and/or attorneys’ fees for unauthorized uses made by transmitting entities that have filed a notice of contact information, click here.


Note that the “Index Date” field displayed for a given Pre-1972 Sound Recording in the Office’s database (and downloadable to an Excel spreadsheet) will reflect the index date of the latest-filed schedule including that sound recording (which may not govern eligibility for statutory damages or attorneys’ fees if it only supplements information for an optional field). Accordingly, users are cautioned to review the “More Info” tab to determine whether more than one schedule has been filed for a given sound recording, which may or may not affect the operative index date.


To submit a Pre-1972 Schedule or a Supplemental Pre-1972 Schedule, you may pay using a credit card or a deposit account with the Office. To pay using a deposit account, at the time of your filing it must contain sufficient funds to pay all applicable fees in total (information about deposit accounts can be found in 37 CFR 201.6(b) and Circular 5).


Correcting or Supplementing Information Regarding a Pre-1972 Sound Recording

By filing a Supplemental Pre-1972 Schedule, a rights owner may correct limited mistakes or supplement information regarding sound recordings included in Pre-1972 Schedules that she (or her authorized agent) previously filed with the Office. Corrections and supplements must be made on a recording-by-recording basis. Information regarding a Pre-1972 Sound Recording may be corrected if the information was incorrect at the time the Pre-1972 Schedule was submitted to the Office, or supplemented to include information that was omitted at the time the Pre-1972 Schedule was submitted to the Office.


The operative index date for a given Pre-1972 Recording will change only in the event that information in one of the statutorily required fields (title, featured artist(s), and rights owner) is changed or amended. Links to as-filed Pre-1972 Schedules and Supplemental Pre-1972 Schedules (showing their respective index dates) will be provided through the Office’s online database by clicking the “More Info” tab for the relevant sound recording.


Removing a Pre-1972 Sound Recording from the Copyright Office’s Database

A rights owner (or her authorized agent) may request deletion of a Pre-1972 Sound Recording from the Copyright Office’s database of indexed schedules by submitting a Removal Form. A deletion may be made if there was a substantive defect in the Pre-1972 Schedule regarding the Pre-1972 Sound Recording at the time the Pre-1972 Schedule was submitted to the Office, or, upon a showing of good cause, at the discretion of the Copyright Office. The Office will keep a record of Pre-1972 Sound Recordings removed from the Office’s database, and a timestamp of when each deletion occurs.


Once a Pre-1972 Sound Recording has been removed from the Office’s database of Pre-1972 Schedules, the sound recording is no longer considered “indexed” for purposes of eligibility to recover certain remedies for the unauthorized use of that sound recording, or included in the Office’s database to preclude a user from taking advantage of the noncommercial use exception.


The Removal Form should be completed in conformity with the following requirements:

  • A rights owner (or her authorized agent) may only request removal of Pre-1972 Sound Recordings included in Pre-1972 Schedules that she previously filed with the Office;
  • All fields in the cover sheet are required;
  • A Removal Form may not include more than one Pre-1972 Sound Recording; and
  • The current fee, in accordance with 37 CFR 201.3(c), is $75 per Removal Form (i.e., per sound recording). To submit a Removal Form, you may pay using a credit card or a deposit account with the Office. If you wish to pay using a credit card instead of a deposit account, indicate “pay by credit card” in response to questions 5 and 6 on the Removal Form. Do not provide your credit card information. The Office will contact you to obtain your credit card information.

Please send your completed submission to the Copyright Office via email to [email protected].

Required Documents to Submit a Schedule

You must submit a:

The cover sheet and template can be found in the Related Information box to the right. Failure to submit either a cover sheet or a Schedule may result in rejection of your filing.


The cover sheet is a fillable PDF form that allows the Office to connect your Schedule with your contact information and fee payment information. It should be completed in conformity with the following requirements:
  • A separate cover sheet should accompany each Schedule you file;
  • All fields in the cover sheet are required;
  • All information provided in the cover sheet should match the information provided in the corresponding Schedule; and
  • The fees specified in the cover sheet must be calculated in accordance with 37 CFR 201.3(c). The current fee is $75 per Schedule plus $10 per group of 1-100 additional sound recordings. For example, the fee for a Schedule that includes 118 sound recordings would be $95 (sound recording 1=$75; sound recordings 2-101=$10; sound recordings 102-118=$10).
  • If you wish to pay using a credit card instead of a deposit account, indicate “pay by credit card” in response to questions 5 and 6 on the cover sheet. Do not provide your credit card information. The Office will contact you to obtain your credit card information. Because processing of Schedules will not occur until after the Office has obtained credit card information from the filer, filers are urged to provide accurate contact information on the cover sheet and to respond to the Office in a timely manner.

The cover sheet will not be posted on the Office’s public website.


The Schedule must be created using the appropriate Excel spreadsheet template provided by the Office, so that the Office can index the information in the Schedule into a public database. It should:
  • Contain all the information required by the template, including the name of the rights owner, title, featured artist(s), and, if known and practicable, the International Standard Recording Code (ISRC), in accordance with 37 CFR 201.35. If there is more than one ISRC for a given sound recording, they must be separated by semicolons; and
  • Provide the name of the individual actually submitting the Schedule to the Office (either the rights owner or the rights owner’s duly authorized agent) typed into the certification required by 37 CFR 201.35(d)(2) (in row 3 of the template).
  • You may also include additional information, such as alternate artist name(s), label name, publication date, alternate sound recording title(s), album, or version for each sound recording, if applicable.
  • If a sound recording has multiple alternate title names or album titles, or if the featured artist has an alternate artist name or names, they must be separated by semicolons (e.g., Sweet Sweet Baby; Since You’ve Been Gone).
  • If a publication date is provided for a sound recording, it must be in a four-digit format (e.g., 1970).
  • Supplemental Pre-1972 Schedules specifically must contain:
    • The Copyright Office’s unique identifier assigned to the relevant sound recording in the Office’s database. The unique identifier is used by the Office to identify the sound recordings for which information should be corrected or supplemented when the Supplemental Pre-1972 Schedule is ingested into the Office’s database. The unique identifier for a given Pre-1972 Sound Recording can be located in Office’s database of Pre-1972 Schedules by clicking the “More Info” button in the line entry for that sound recording, or by downloading and exporting data for that sound recording from the database into an Excel spreadsheet.
    • The name of the rights owner, title, featured artist(s), and, if known and practicable, the ISRC, as well as all optional information the rights owner would like to provide to the Copyright Office (even if already provided to the Office on a previously filed Pre-1972 Schedule for that sound recording), inclusive of any corrections or amendments to such information.

Pre-1972 Schedules and Supplemental Pre-1972 Schedules will be made available through the Office’s public online database.


Requirements for Submitting Your Schedule

Please send your completed submission to the Copyright Office via email to [email protected]. If electronic submission of your Schedule is not feasible due to lack of access to a computer and/or the internet, please contact the Office using the contact information below for special instructions. Each submission email should conform to the following requirements:

  • Each email should contain attachments of both a cover sheet and a corresponding Schedule;
  • Each cover sheet and Schedule pair should be emailed separately (no email should contain more than one cover sheet or Schedule);
  • The Schedule must be emailed as an Excel file, and must not be converted to PDF or any other file format;
  • The cover sheet and Schedule must not be locked or have any protections or restrictions in place (other than what has already been locked by the Office in the template made available on this page); and
  • All emails must be smaller than twenty megabytes. If your submission exceeds this limit, you must split up your Pre-1972 Schedule and make multiple filings (including additional cover sheets as necessary).

Where a sound recording has multiple rights owners:

  • A single rights owner (or her authorized agent) may file a Pre-1972 Schedule pertaining to sound recordings where that owner is not the sole owner. That same rights owner (or her authorized agent) may correct limited mistakes or supplement information regarding sound recordings included in Pre-1972 Schedules that she previously filed with the Office.
  • If you include multiple rights owners for a sound recording, they must be separated by semicolons.
  • It is not necessary for every rights owner to file a Pre-1972 Schedule, though it is permitted.

Please send your completed submission to the Copyright Office via email to [email protected].


What to Expect After Submission of Schedules

Shortly after you have submitted the requisite materials, you will receive an email confirming that your submission has been received by the Office. If your submission complies with the procedural requirements detailed above, the applicable fees will be deducted from the specified deposit account or charged to your credit card, and you will be sent an email confirming that your Schedule has been successfully filed with the Office. Next, your Schedule will indexed into the Office’s public records and be made publicly available through the Office’s online database.


Please note that the Office does not analyze Schedules for legal sufficiency, interpret their content, or screen them for errors or discrepancies. The Office’s review is limited to whether the procedural requirements established by the Office (including payment of the proper filing fee) have been met.


If your submission fails to comply with the Office’s procedural requirements, you will receive an email stating that your submission has been rejected and an explanation of the defect(s).


If you have any questions, please contact the Office at (202) 707-3000 or 1-877-476-0778 (toll free), or at [email protected].

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