Table Of Contentu n i t e d s t a t e s c o p y r i g h t o f f i c e
Transforming Document Recordation at
the United States Copyright Office
a report of the abraham l. kaminstein scholar in residence december 2014
u n i t e d s t a t e s c o p y r i g h t o f f i c e
Transforming Document Recordation at
the United States Copyright Office
a report of the abraham l. kaminstein scholar in residence december 2014
Transforming Document Recordation
at the United States Copyright Office:
A Report to the Register of Copyrights
Robert Brauneis
Abraham L. Kaminstein Scholar in Residence, U.S. Copyright Offic e
Professor of Law, The George Washington UniversityL aw School
December 31, 2014
About the Abraham L. Kaminstein Scholar in Residence Program
Through its Abraham L. Kaminstein Scholar in Residence Program, the Copyright Office brings
leading academics with a demonstrated commitment to the study of copyright law and policy to
the Copyright Office, at the invitation of the Register, to conduct research and/or work on
mutually beneficial projects for a sustained period of time.
Abe Kaminstein served as the sixth Register of Copyrights, from 1960 to 1971. He was a leading
force in adapting the copyright registration system to the public interest, and in laying the
groundwork for the general revision of copyright law.
Table of Contents
I. Introduction. ................................................................................................................................. 7
A. Process. ................................................................................................................................... 8
B. Roadmap. ................................................................................................................................ 8
C. Reference Abbreviations and Locations. ................................................................................ 9
D. Acknowledgments. ............................................................................................................... 10
II. The Recording of Documents Pertaining to Copyright: History and Current State ................. 11
A. The Statutory Framework: A Brief History and Outline. ..................................................... 11
B. The Recordation Process. ...................................................................................................... 15
1. Receipt and Initial Processing: the In-Processing Section, Copyright Information
Section, and Accounts Section. ............................................................................................. 15
2. Screening. .......................................................................................................................... 17
a. The Requirements for which Documents are Screened. ................................................ 17
i. Signatures. ............................................................................................................... 17
ii. “Pertaining to Copyright.” ................................................................................... 18
iii. Completeness. ...................................................................................................... 18
iv. Legibility. ............................................................................................................. 18
v. Payment of Fees. .................................................................................................. 19
vi. Documents That Purport to Accomplish “Transfers of Copyright Ownership.” . 19
c. A Screening and Correspondence Study. ..................................................................... 20
3. Cataloging. ......................................................................................................................... 22
a. The Cataloging Process: Transcription, Description, Creation. .................................... 22
i. Transcription. .............................................................................................................. 22
ii. Description. ............................................................................................................... 23
iii. Creation. ................................................................................................................... 23
b. The Legal Framework of Cataloging. ............................................................................ 23
4. Correspondence with Remitters. ........................................................................................ 25
5. Marking and Imaging of Documents. ................................................................................ 25
6. Creation of Recordation Certificate, and Sending of Certificate and Document. ............. 25
C. Recordation from a Searcher’s Perspective: The Document Repository and Catalog. ........ 26
1. An Historical Review of Recorded Document Repositories and Finding Aids. ............... 26
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a. Repositories. .................................................................................................................. 26
b. Finding Aids. ................................................................................................................. 26
2. The Current Document Repository. ................................................................................... 28
3. The Current Document Catalog. ........................................................................................ 28
a. The Voyager Search Interface. ...................................................................................... 29
b. Document Types. ........................................................................................................... 29
c. Registration Numbers. ................................................................................................... 31
d. Types of Works Transferred. ......................................................................................... 32
D. Recordation Fees, Staffing, and Processing Times. ............................................................. 32
1. Recordation Fees. .............................................................................................................. 32
2. Staffing. ............................................................................................................................. 34
3. Processing Times. .............................................................................................................. 34
III. The Big Picture: Trends in Document Recordation and Case Law Since 1978 ...................... 36
A. Document Recordation, 1978-2009. ..................................................................................... 36
B. Case Law Regarding Recordation under the 1976 Act. ........................................................ 49
1. Straightforward Applications of Priority Rules. ................................................................ 50
2. Notice – Particularly Inquiry Notice. ................................................................................ 50
3. Registrations in the Context of Recordation. ..................................................................... 50
4. Bankruptcy and the Perfection of Secured Interests. ......................................................... 52
5. The Former § 205(d) Requirement of Recording Before Filing a Lawsuit ....................... 53
IV. An Electronic Recordation System: Detailed Evaluation and Recommendations .................. 54
A. Shortcomings of the Current Recordation System. .............................................................. 54
1. Fees. ................................................................................................................................... 54
2. Processing Time. ............................................................................................................... 54
3. Difficulties and Mismatches with Business Practices in the Recording Process. ............. 55
4. Inaccuracies in Cataloging Recorded Documents. ............................................................ 55
B. The Principal Features of an Electronic Recordation System. ............................................. 57
1. Optional Electronic Submission of Documents. ................................................................ 59
2. Allowing Identifiable, Discrete Electronic Signatures on Recorded Documents. ............ 60
a. The Statutory Interpretation Issue: Can Electronic Signatures be “Actual Signatures”
Within the Meaning of §205(a)? ....................................................................................... 64
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b. Copyright Office Electronic Signature Regulations for Remitted Documents: “Discrete
and Identifiable” Signatures. ............................................................................................. 65
3. Requiring Remitters to Submit Sworn, Electronically-Signed Certifications. .................. 67
a. Remitter Certifications. .................................................................................................. 67
b. Contents of the Certification. ......................................................................................... 68
c. User Account Creation and Electronic Signatures on Certifications. ............................ 71
4. A Public Digital Document Repository: Preserving Documents in Portable Document
Format and Making Them Available on the Internet. ........................................................... 72
a. The Advantages of a Digital Document Repository. ..................................................... 73
b. The Portable Document Format Standard. .................................................................... 75
c. Making Documents Available on the Internet. .............................................................. 76
i. Personally Identifiable Information. ........................................................................... 77
ii. Sensitive Financial and Non-Copyright Terms. ........................................................ 79
iii. Proposals for Limited Internet Access. .................................................................... 81
iv. Retrospective Availability. ....................................................................................... 82
5. Copyright Office Screening of Documents and Remitter Certification of Document
Compliance. ........................................................................................................................... 83
6. Remitter Provision of Cataloging Information. ................................................................. 88
a. Templates. ...................................................................................................................... 88
b. Bulk Submission of Titles, Registration Numbers and other Work Identifiers. ............ 88
c. Interactive Guidance. ..................................................................................................... 90
d. Structured Electronic Documents. ................................................................................. 92
e. Legal Authority for Requiring Remitters to Provide Cataloging Information. ............ 93
7. Remitter Responsibility for Constructive Notice that Requires Both Satisfactory
Documents and Accurate Cataloging. ................................................................................... 97
a. The Legal Framework for Remitter Responsibility for Accurate Catalog Information
......................................................................................................................................... 101
b. Copyright Office Regulations Regarding Recordation. .............................................. 108
8. Remitter Receipt of Recordation Certificate and Labeled Document in Electronic Form
............................................................................................................................................. 108
a. The Statutory Framework. ........................................................................................... 109
9. New Legal Incentives to Record. .................................................................................... 110
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C. Amending the Copyright Act. ............................................................................................. 112
D. Additional Recommendations. ........................................................................................... 114
1. Information Gathering and Handling. ............................................................................. 114
a. Data Collection in an Electronic Recordation System. ................................................ 114
b. Data Format Consistency and Parsing. ........................................................................ 115
c. Change Logs. ............................................................................................................... 117
2. Registration Numbers in Recorded Document Records. ................................................. 117
3. Interoperability and Third-Party Enhanced Services. ...................................................... 119
a. Standard Identifiers. ..................................................................................................... 120
b. Application Programming Interfaces. .......................................................................... 121
4. Section 508 Litigation Notifications. ............................................................................... 123
5. Updating Contact and “Rights and Permissions” Information: A New Model. .............. 127
V. Conclusion. ............................................................................................................................. 129
Appendix: An Overview of the Proposed Recordation Process .................................................. 130
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I. Introduction.
For over 140 years, federal law has provided for recording of documents pertaining to
copyright in one central location, at the Copyright Office and, before the Copyright Office was
created as a separate unit, at the Library of Congress. Over that time, the copyright recordation
system has supported a market for interests in and use of works of authorship by lowering the
cost of obtaining information about ownership and by reducing unavoidable risks that threaten
ownership. It has done so in two related ways. First, it has created a central registry where
documents that may or do affect ownership of interests in works under copyright can be placed
on public record, and has indexed those documents so that they are easy to locate. Second, it has
changed legal rules about notice and priority between conflicting transfers.
As technologies have changed over the past 140 years, so have the forms of the
Copyright Office’s recorded document repository, the indexes and finding aids to that repository,
and the methods of accepting and processing documents for recordation. In 1870, the full texts of
documents submitted for recordation were transcribed in handwriting into bound volumes, and
index entries were made in handwriting in the front of each of the volumes. In 2014, digital
images are made of remitted documents, and the document index is maintained in a computer
database available on the Internet. In other respects, however, document recordation at the
Copyright Office has changed little since 1870. As they were in 1870, documents are still only
accepted on paper, and Copyright Office recordation specialists create the index of recorded
documents by reading each document and manually transcribing selected information from it.
For some time, it has been generally accepted that the Copyright Office needs to further
modernize its document recordation function by enabling electronic submission of documents for
recordation and by taking advantage of other opportunities created by the Internet and other
technological advances. However, the devil is in the details, and figuring out how to implement
an electronic recordation system is a difficult project. This report attempts to make a
contribution to that project. In doing so, it makes a number of assumptions.
First, the copyright recording system must generally cover its own costs. A recording
system might well better achieve the goal of enhancing certainty in title to copyrights if the
Copyright Office reduced the recording fee to zero, while at the same time spending large sums
to catalog documents and make them available to the public. However, it is unlikely that
copyright recordation will consistently receive large subsidies. Thus, it is assumed that
recordation costs must generally be recovered through fees.
Second, generally speaking, the more documented copyright transactions that are
recorded, the better. The great virtue of a central repository of transaction documents is that it
lowers costs of obtaining ownership information by giving interested parties one place to search
for many documents, and the more comprehensive that search can be, the better. However, there
will almost certainly be some trade-off between the number of documents recorded and the
quality of the repository. As recordation fees are lowered, the number of documents recorded
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