Government Reports


June 2020	USCO Letter Addressing Additional Questions on 512 Study Copyright Office SUMMARY: This letter is a response from the USCO to a May 2020 letter from Senators Thom Tillis (R-NC) and Patrick Leahy (D-VT). The Senators' letter congratulates the USCO on issuing its Section 512 Report, crediting the report as "invaluable in the insights it provides Congress," and asks that the Office supplement the report by answering a set of additional questions.
May 2020	Section 512 of Title 17: A Report of the Register of Copyrights Copyright Office SUMMARY: This report is the culmination of a 5-year study of section 512 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. In its report, the U.S. Copyright Office repeatedly notes that the balance Congress intended in section 512 is “askew” to the detriment of rights holders. The Office does not recommend any major revisions to the statute, but suggests “areas where Congress may wish to fine- tune section 512’s current operation in order to better balance the rights and responsibilities of OSPs and rightsholders, in alignment with its objectives when it passed the DMCA.” In addition, the Office makes various recommendations outside the context of legislative amendments, including those related to education, voluntary measures, and standard technical measures, and even commits itself to rolling out certain educational tools and a website focused on tools and information regarding the DMCA.
December 2019	Letter Re: Potential Felony Penalties for Criminal Infringement of the Right of Public Performance Department of Justice SUMMARY: The Department of Justice responded to a letter from Senator Tillis (R-NC) soliciting the government's views regarding potential felony penalties for criminal infringement of the right of public performance.
October 2019	Proposed Schedule and Analysis of Copyright Fees Copyright Office SUMMARY: The new fee schedule is a product of this cost study and consideration of well over 100 comments. Per the notice, “while a number of fees, including the fee for standard registrations, have increased to permit the Office to more fully recoup its expenses, some fees have decreased, and others, such as the group application for photographs, remain the same.”
September 2019	Letter Re: Status of IT Modernization for the U.S. Copyright Office Copyright Office SUMMARY: Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden and Register of Copyrights Karyn Temple responded to Senate Judiciary IP Subcommittee Chairman Thom Tillis’ (R-NC) letter inquiring about efforts to modernize the U.S. Copyright Office.
July 2019	Letter Re: Potential Felony Penalties for Criminal Infringement of the Right of Public Performance Copyright Office SUMMARY: The Copyright Office responded to a letter from Senator Tillis (R-NC) soliciting the government's views regarding potential felony penalties for criminal infringement of the right of public performance.
June 2019	U.S. Copyright Office Analysis and Recommendations Regarding the Section 119 Compulsory License SUMMARY: Register of Copyrights Karyn Temple sent a letter to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) and Ranking Member Doug Collins (R-GA) recommending that Congress not reauthorize the compulsory license for secondary transmissions of distant broadcast programming by satellite under 17 U.S.C. § 119. The provision, which was most recently extended by the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act Reauthorization Act (STELAR) in 2014, is slated to expire on December 31, 2019. Register Temple notes in the letter that this recommendation is consistent with the Office's long-standing position on the section 119 compulsory license, reflected in previous reports sent to Congress in 2008 and 2011. Temple states that the section 119 compulsory license has been "made unnecessary by the substantial growth of the satellite industry" and the "changed realities of the programming delivery market."
May 2019	Letter Re: Copyright Registration Pendency (House Letter) SUMMARY: Register of Copyrights Karyn Temple sent letters to the House and Senate Judiciary Committees in response to inquiries regarding the Supreme Court's Fourth Estate decision and the Copyright Office's plans to modernize the registration system and reduce pendency times in light of that decision. In the letter, Temple states that "the seven-month average processing time cited in Fourth Estate for online claims that do not require correspondence has already been reduced to four months," adding that the overall processing time has been reduced to five months. Temple also says that to prevent another significant backlog of registrations, it's vital to "ensure that the Registration Program is fully staffed, stabilize IT resources, and ensure that the Copyright Office can continue to operate in the event of a government shutdown." In addition to responses to specific questions from the committees, the letter includes an explanation of challenges the Office has faced in administering the registration system, and actions that have been taken to address those challenges, as well as a detailed pendency reduction plan.
April 2019	Authors, Attribution, and Integrity: Examining Moral Rights in the United States Copyright Office SUMMARY: The Copyright Office released its Moral Rights Report, which “presents an extensive review of the U.S. moral rights regime, exploring the current state of attribution and integrity interests – particularly with respect to legal and technological changes since the United States joined the Berne Convention thirty years ago.” Following hearings and reviews of public comments, the Report concludes that the U.S. moral rights framework is adequate, “despite there being some room for improvement,” and suggests possible avenues for strengthening the framework, including amending the Visual Artists Rights Act (VARA) and the Lanham Act, expanding authors’ recourse for removal or alteration of copyright management information in section 1202, and adopting a federal right of publicity law.
January 2019	Copyright and Visual Works: The Legal Landscape of Opportunities and Challenges (House Letter) Copyright Office SUMMARY: After completing a study to determine how certain visual works are monetized, enforced, and registered under the Copyright Act, the Office sent letters to the Chairman and Ranking members of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees regarding the legal landscape of opportunities and challenges for copyright and visual works. The letters note the Office is considering issues such as development of APIs and extension of group applications to all types of visual works as part of its ongoing modernization efforts; plans to issue an Notice of Inquiry in 2019 “on issues relating to online publication as they relate to registration requirements”; review of “issues regarding CMI and section 1202 in the context of its study on the moral rights of attribution and integrity”; and continued support of legislative solutions for small claims enforcement and orphan works.