Copyright Office Leaves Electronic-Filing Fee Untouched in New Schedule
The Copyright Office proposed a new fee schedule for 2009 through 2011, including a charge for a hybrid form of basic filing recently introduced by the office. Some of the largest proposed increases are for paper filings, which the office is trying to discourage, and for Copyright Act section 115 compulsory-license filings. The office suggested adding a fee for online service providers acting as agents for DMCA takedown-notice claims, based on how many domain names they handle. Most fees are rising to cover inflation. The office based the proposed schedule on an analysis of its costs from January through March. It was made available Monday and requires approval by Congress.
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Online filing of basic copyright claims would remain $35. The electronic Copyright Office system (eCO) went through a year in beta before becoming available to the public in July at a substantial discount and quickly drew one in five filers (WID July 7 p6). A report by Melissa Dadant, chief of the Receipt Analysis and Control Division, said the office gets almost 5,000 electronic filings a week, 43 percent of “normal weekly receipts.”
In July the office began offering a hybrid filing method that lets a user enter claim information on the office Web site and print a form, to be mailed to the office, with a bar code containing claim information in digital form. The office proposed raising the fee from $45 to $50. The report said “large numbers” of such forms are being filed. It stopped short of speculating how successful the hybrid form will be in getting applicants off standard paper forms.
Paper filings for basic claims, though less expensive than some categories, would see some of the largest fee rises. The office proposed an increase to $65 from $45 to cover the “high cost of digitizing” paper information and associated costs, said the report. Paper filings for a group of contributions to periodicals, published photographs and database updates would go to $65 as well. Preregistration, available for works “particularly susceptible to infringement prior to publication, often by electronic means,” would rise to $115 from $100 under the proposal.
The largest increase -- to $105 from $12 -- would be for the section 115 license to make and distribute phonorecords. The current charge “has become both a windfall for filers who have only one title in their notice and a burden for those with many titles,” the report said. It would cost $20 for each group of 10 additional titles.
The office wants to raise fees for designating an agent to handle infringement claims under section 512. It publishes a directory of online services providers and their agents on its Web site for a flat rate, but some filings have a large number of associated domain names, so they should be charged extra, it said. The office suggested increasing the filing fee to $105 from $80 and adding a $30 fee for each group of 10 domain names.