Copyright Office's FY 2017 Budget Request Focuses on Maintaining Service, 'Replenishing' Staff
Much of the Copyright Office’s $74 million FY 2017 budget request is directed at “maintaining the current state” of the CO’s operations and “replenishing depleted staff to ensure we have sufficient personnel to meet our current responsibilities under the Copyright Act,” said Register of Copyrights Maria Pallante in written testimony to the Senate Appropriations Committee’s Legislative Branch Subcommittee. Acting Librarian of Congress David Mao will testify at the hearing Tuesday on the LOC’s proposed $719 million FY 2017 budget, while Pallante will be at the hearing to answer CO-specific questions, the CO said Monday. Both Mao and Pallante testified during an early March House Appropriations Committee Legislative Branch Subcommittee hearing on the LOC and CO budget requests (see 1603020055). The Senate hearing will begin at 3 p.m. in 192 Dirksen.
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The CO’s existing FY 2017 budget request “does not assume the elements” of the office’s potential revamp of its IT infrastructure as envisioned in the CO’s provisional IT modernization plan, Pallante told the Senate subcommittee in her written testimony. The CO’s provisional IT modernization plan aims to develop a wholly separate IT infrastructure for the office that would include further automation of the copyright registration system and additional reliance on cloud technologies. The plan could cost the CO $165 million to implement over five years (see 1602290071).The CO’s IT modernization plan and 2016-2020 strategic plan will together “set a path by which to recalibrate almost all of the Copyright Office’s services, from how it registers copyright interests in all kinds of creative works, to how it records and shares critical copyright data,” Pallante said. The CO’s plans track with the LOC’s own strategic plan, leaving both the library and CO “well positioned now to discuss relative points of alignment and relative responsibilities for information technology services,” Pallante said.
The CO’s FY 2017 budget request “prioritizes an increase in [full time employees], many of which would be dedicated to improving existing services,” including “technicians to speed the production of certified copies of copyright deposits and other materials,” Pallante said. The CO’s budget request is an almost $15 million increase over the office’s FY 2016 budget, with about $9.8 million of that being funded through increased collection of fees if Congress authorizes “increased spending authority,” Pallante said. “We have aligned the request for increased spending authority with those program changes that support copyright owners paying fees into the copyright system, e.g., increased staffing in our copyright registration and recordation groups.” The $5.2 million of the proposed increase in the CO’s budget that would come from increased taxpayer funding would involve programs “that serve the general public or businesses taking advantage of free public data, such as increased staffing of the legal and policy departments and public information office, and to account for mandatory pay and price level changes,” Pallante said.
Pallante’s testimony doesn't reference the ongoing debate over whether CO modernization should include a possible separation of the office from the LOC or some other form of increased CO autonomy. Pallante is unlikely to wade into the CO modernization debate during the Senate subcommittee hearing, especially since she made clear during the House hearing that the CO’s IT modernization was a completely separate issue from her push for CO modernization, a copyright lobbyist told us.