2017 Removal of Personally Identifiable Information from Registration Records

After soliciting comments in 2016, the U.S. Copyright Office adopted new rules related to personally identifiable information (PII) that may be found in the Office’s registration records. First, the rule will, for a fee, allow authors, claimants of record, or their authorized agents to request the removal of certain PII requested by the Office and collected on registration applications, such as names, home addresses, or personal phone numbers. The PII will be removed from the Office’s Internet-accessible public catalog but retained in the Office’s offline records as required by law. Second, the proposed rule will codify an existing practice regarding extraneous PII that applicants erroneously include on registration applications even though the Office has not requested it, such as driver’s license numbers, social security numbers, banking information, and credit card information. Under the proposed rule, the Office will, upon request and free of charge, remove such extraneous PII both from the Office’s Internet-accessible public catalog and its offline records.