Copyright Office Submits Proposed Fee Schedule and Analysis to Congress
Issue No. 676 - August 18, 2017

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Today, the U.S. Copyright Office submitted to Congress a schedule and analysis of a proposed fee for recording certain types of documents with the Office. Specifically, the Office proposes to establish a separate, lower fee for documents submitted for recordation that are accompanied by an electronic title list; i.e., a list of certain indexing information about the copyrighted works to which such documents pertain. These lists save Office staff from needing to find and input this often voluminous information manually. The Office anticipates that a lower fee will incentivize more remitters to use these electronic lists, which should help the Office to improve its processing efficiency. The Office also anticipates that a lower fee should result in an increase in documents submitted for recordation.

Pursuant to 17 U.S.C. § 708(b), the Register of Copyrights may institute the new fee 120 days after the proposed schedule is submitted to Congress unless Congress enacts a law within the 120-day period stating that it does not approve the schedule. The Office seeks to implement the new fee on or about December 18, 2017.

The proposed fee schedule and analysis is available here.