Copyright Online Recordation System Marks One-Year Anniversary

Today, the U.S. Copyright Office is marking one year since the full public launch of the Office’s online Recordation System. In the last year, this new system has cemented itself as the go-to process for users submitting certain documents to the Office for recordation. The launch last year followed a successful limited pilot program.

Throughout the limited pilot, participants submitted 35 percent of all recorded documents using the Recordation System. Since we opened it to the full public, 75 percent of all recorded documents have been submitted through the online system. This represents over 8,000 documents containing over 350,000 works pertaining to copyrights. The system continues to enable the Office to process requests in a matter of weeks as compared to the months it may take for paper submissions.

“The Office is gratified to see the positive reception and increasing use of the online Recordation System since it opened to the public a year ago,” said Shira Perlmutter, Register of Copyrights and Director of the U.S. Copyright Office. “From faster processing times to consolidated tracking and messaging, this system is a success story as the first major product release of our Enterprise Copyright System (ECS), which will integrate and improve all of our services.”

The Copyright Office 2022–2026 strategic plan identifies Continuous Development as a “whole-of-Office” strategic goal: continuously improving and updating our services, utilizing state-of-the-art technology to meet the evolving needs of the copyright community. For more information about the Office’s modernization work, visit copyright.gov/copyright-modernization/.

For more information about copyright recordation and the online Recordation System, visit copyright.gov/recordation.