Federal Register / Vol. 77, No. 60 / Wednesday, March 28, 2012 / Rules and Regulations 18705 

to the public interest. For similar 

reasons and in order to minimize 

disruptions in the Office’s educational 

activities, the Register finds that there is 

good cause to make the rule effective 

immediately upon publication. 

List of Subjects in 37 CFR Part 201 

Copyright, General provisions. 

Final Rule 

In consideration of the foregoing, part 

201 of 37 CFR chapter II is amended as 

follows: 

PART 201—GENERAL PROVISIONS 

■ 1. The authority citation for part 201 

continues to read as follows: 

Authority: 17 U.S.C. 702. 

■ 2 Amend § 201.3 as follows: 

■ a. In paragraph (b)(2) by removing 

‘‘708(a)(10)’’ and adding ‘‘708(a)’’ in its 

place. 

■ b. By adding new paragraph (f) as 

follows: 

§ 201.3 Fees for registration, recordation, 

and related services, special services, and 

services performed by the Licensing 

Division. 

* * * * * 

(f) Fees for travel in connection with 

educational activities. For travel 

expenses in connection with Copyright 

Office educational activities when 

participation by Copyright Office 

personnel has been requested by 

another organization or person and that 

organization or person has agreed to pay 

such expenses, collection of the fee 

shall be subject to, and the amount of 

the fee shall be no greater than, the 

amount authorized under the Federal 

Travel Regulations found in Chapters 

300 through 304 of Title 41. 

Dated: March 12, 2012. 

Maria A. Pallante, 

Register of Copyrights. 

Dated: March 19, 2012. 

Approved by: 

James H. Billington, 

The Librarian of Congress. 

[FR Doc. 2012–7427 Filed 3–27–12; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 1410–30–P 

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

Copyright Office 

37 CFR Parts 201 and 202 

[Docket No. 2011–8] 

Discontinuance of Form CO in 

Registration Practices 

AGENCY: Copyright Office, Library of 

Congress. 

ACTION: Final rule. 

SUMMARY: The United States Copyright 

Office is amending its regulations in 

order to discontinue use of the Form CO 

application as an option for applying for 

copyright registration, and in order to 

remove references to CON 1 and CON 2 

continuation sheets. The removal of 

Form CO leaves applicants a choice of 

filing an application for registration 

electronically or by using the 

appropriate printed application form 

relating to the subject matter of the 

application. The amendment also 

removes the references to CON 1 and 

CON 2 continuation sheets, which were 

never developed or made available to 

the public; the regulations instead now 

refer only to the continuation sheets 

currently available for applicants filing 

paper applications and makes other 

housekeeping amendments relating to 

applications for copyright registration. 

DATES: Effective Date: July 1, 2012. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: 

Tanya Sandros, Deputy General 

Counsel, Copyright Office, GC/I&R, P.O. 

Box 70400, Washington, DC 20024. 

Telephone: (202) 707–8380. Telefax: 

(202) 707–8366. All prior Federal 

Register notices and comments in this 

docket are available at http:// 

www.copyright.gov/docs/formco/. 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 

Background 

In 2007, the Copyright Office began an 

extensive business process 

reengineering initiative that had an 

impact on a variety of registrationrelated activities. See 72 FR 36883 (July 

6, 2007). As part of this initiative, the 

Office promulgated interim regulations 

regarding how the public submits and 

the Office processes copyright 

applications. In these interim 

regulations, the Office announced four 

ways to file an application for 

registration. At the time, the Office used 

the term ‘‘Form CO’’ generically in its 

regulations to cover all four approaches 

to registration. With the implementation 

of the new electronic registration 

practices, however, Form CO was used 

to describe a specific form that is filled 

out on a computer and that uses 

barcodes to capture the information 

entered by the person filling out the 

form. After completing the form, the 

applicant prints it out and submits the 

paper form to the Copyright Office. This 

newer incarnation of Form CO, first 

made available in 2008, was intended to 

simplify the application process and 

replace the traditional paper Forms TX, 

VA, PA, SR, and SE. See 72 FR at 36885; 

37 CFR 202.3(b)(2)(ii). However, 

following the implementation of 

reengineering, it eventually became 

clear (for reasons discussed below) that 

Form CO did not live up to its 

expectations because many users of the 

form made entries on the form that were 

not captured in the barcodes and 

therefore were not carried over into the 

Office’s registration records and because 

of problems with printing the forms. 

The regulations promulgated in 2007 

also referred to two additional 

continuation sheets, CON 1 and CON 2, 

which the Office intended to be used in 

connection with Form CO and which 

would have allowed applicants to 

provide additional information that 

would not fit within the barcodes to be 

generated by Form CO. See 72 FR at 

36886. However, the Office never 

developed these new continuation 

sheets and continued to accept the 

traditional Form CON for the provision 

of additional information. See http:// 

www.copyright.gov/forms/formcon.pdf. 

On September 30, 2011, the Copyright 

Office published a notice of proposed 

rulemaking and request for comments in 

regard to Form CO, CON 1, and CON 2. 

76 FR 60774. The Office proposed 

eliminating Form CO as an application 

option and removing references to CON 

1 and CON 2. Form CO, the Office 

pointed out, is not widely used, but it 

does present a disproportionate number 

of problems for the Office. As is 

explained in greater detail in the notice 

of proposed rulemaking, when 

applicants find they need to amend 

information on Form CO after preparing 

and printing the form but before 

submitting it, they frequently make 

changes by writing directly on the form 

rather than redoing or revising the form 

correctly online. As a result, additional 

time and resources are required for the 

Office to manually input the amended 

information into the system, or it may 

be missed in the ingestion process 

altogether. Either way, the added time 

required to detect and correct these 

problems defeats all the efficiencies 

promised by this technology. 

Nor is human error the only concern. 

The notice of proposed rulemaking also 

noted that the use of barcodes presents 

other unique problems associated with 


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18706 Federal Register / Vol. 77, No. 60 / Wednesday, March 28, 2012 / Rules and Regulations 

the technology. Barcodes can be 

compromised and fail to function 

properly, e.g., due to distortion in the 

printing of the application, or due to 

tears in the portion of the page on which 

the barcode appears. In such cases the 

information on a Form CO application 

must be manually entered into the 

online registration system. 

In addition to proposing the 

elimination of Form CO, the Office 

proposed amending its regulations to 

remove references to continuation 

sheets for use with Form CO—CON 1 

and CON 2—because the Copyright 

Office never created these specialized 

forms. 

Comments 

The Office received two comments in 

response to its notice of proposed 

rulemaking one in support of the 

proposal to eliminate Form CO and the 

other in support of maintaining it 

Author Services, Inc. writing in support 

of the Office’s proposal to eliminate 

Form CO, stated that its use is ‘‘likely 

to cause errors and lengthen the 

examination process.’’ Attorney Joshua 

Kaufman, on the other hand, opposed 

elimination of Form CO. He argued that 

the electronic filing system is ‘‘clunky, 

cumbersome and takes a great deal of 

time,’’ and stated that the system does 

not provide a copy of the application 

suitable for the applicant’s file and for 

subsequent review. The alternative to 

electronic filing—using forms specific to 

various types of works—was also 

insufficient, maintained Mr. Kaufman, 

because these forms take over a year to 

process and are more expensive than 

electronic registration. 

Discussion 

Form CO represents a very small 

percentage of applications received by 

the Office—approximately two percent 

of applications submitted since January 

2011 have been submitted on Form CO. 

Eliminating Form CO will simplify the 

registration process for the Copyright 

Office and leave applicants with two 

options to register their works. They 

may submit applications for registration 

electronically or they may use the paper 

forms (Forms TX, PA, VA, SR, and SE., 

or the Short Forms TX, PA, VA or SE 

if appropriate). Applications submitted 

electronically are less expensive and 

this option allows for a quicker 

turnaround time. Currently, these 

applications are processed on average in 

three months. The Office has also 

reduced the time it takes to process a 

paper application, completing the 

process on average in 10 months. 

However, the key benefit gained in 

eliminating Form CO is the savings in 

resources which the Office now spends 

on reviewing each Form CO to ensure 

the accuracy of the Form CO 

information embedded in the barcode. 

While Mr. Kaufman’s lone voice in 

favor of maintaining Form CO does not 

provide a strong reason for the Office to 

continue to offer this option for 

registration, he does raise three issues 

that the Office, for the sake of clarity, 

wishes to address. First, the Office is 

aware that improvements are needed to 

make the online registration system 

more user-friendly and less timeconsuming and, for that reason, the 

Office is committed to making it as easy 

and efficient as possible. To that end, 

the Register has made the evaluation of 

technical upgrades to the current 

electronic deposit system a major 

priority over the next 18 months, a 

process that includes significant 

involvement from remitters and 

technical experts. See Priorities and 

Special Projects of the United States 

Copyright Office (http:// 

www.copyright.gov/docs/priorities.pdf) 

at 13. Also, contrary to Mr. Kaufman’s 

assertion, a reviewable copy of an 

electronic application is available to 

applicants after successful fee payment. 

Using the ‘‘My Applications’’ link, an 

applicant can view and print a copy of 

the certificate preview displaying all the 

information entered by the applicant 

under the corresponding headings. 

Finally, regarding the use of paper forms 

instead of electronic registration, the 

Office notes that while paper 

registration is more expensive and does 

take longer, the processing time for 

these applications has been steadily 

declining. As noted above, the current 

average processing time for a paper 

application is 10 months, not a year or 

longer. 

For the reasons set forth above and 

because there is little support for 

maintaining Form CO, the Office has 

concluded that the use of Form CO 

should be discontinued. In addition, 

because the Office is discontinuing 

Form CO and never created the CON 1 

and CON 2 forms that were to be used 

with Form CO, the Office is amending 

its regulations to remove references to 

the CON 1 and CON 2 forms. Note, 

however, that those applicants using 

paper applications may continue to use 

existing Form CON. See http:// 

www.copyright.gov/forms/formcon.pdf. 

As a related point of clarity, the Office 

is also amending § 202.3(b)(10)(iv)(D) 

and (v) of the regulations, relating to 

group registration of published 

photographs, to clarify that the 

references therein to ‘‘special 

continuation sheet’’ are references to 

Form DR/PPh/CON. 

Effective Date 

Beginning July 1, 2012, the Copyright 

Office will no longer accept Form CO 

applications for registration. Upon 

receipt of a Form CO on or after July 1, 

2012, the Office will notify the remitter 

that it has received an incomplete 

submission for registration and that the 

remitter may complete the submission 

by providing a completed ‘‘Form TX’’; 

‘‘Form PA’’; ‘‘Form VA’’; ‘‘Form SR’’; 

‘‘Form SE.,’’ or the short form versions 

of Forms TX, PA, VA or SE as 

appropriate, along with any applicable 

short fee. The effective date of 

registration for the claim will be the 

date the Office receives a complete 

submission, including an acceptable 

form, the appropriate fee and the 

deposit. Should the remitter fail to 

provide the correct form and additional 

fee within 30 days, the Office will close 

the claim and retain the initial fee to 

cover the administrative costs of 

processing the incomplete submission. 

Housekeeping Amendments 

The Office also takes this opportunity 

to make three additional amendments to 

its regulations. First, the Office is 

amending § 201.3(c) to clarify that the 

$35 fee for an electronic filing listed in 

item 2 applies only to the electronic 

submission of applications for group 

registration of photographs and for 

registration of automated databases that 

predominantly consist of photographs 

and updates to these databases. See 76 

FR 4072 (January 24, 2011) and 76 FR 

5106 (January 28, 2011). While the 

Office had anticipated providing an 

online option for group registration of 

contributions to periodicals, this option 

still requires further testing and 

evaluation and is not currently offered. 

Second, the Office is amending 

§ 202.2(b)(1) which incorrectly 

identifies the appropriate copyright 

notice on a sound recording as a ‘‘©.’’ 

The technical amendment corrects this 

error and identifies the correct notice for 

a sound recording as a ‘‘b.’’ 

Finally, the Office is amending 

§ 202.3(b)(2)(ii) to include specific 

references to the short forms of several 

standard applications for registration 

and to indicate the circumstances under 

which these forms are used today. The 

conditions for use of the short forms are 

explained in the instructions 

accompanying Short Form PA, Short 

Form TX, Short Form VA, and Short 

Form SE. Thus, the proposed 

amendment merely clarifies the 

longstanding practice of the Office to 

accept short form applications, provided 

that the claim meets the conditions 

outlined in the instructions to the forms. 


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Federal Register / Vol. 77, No. 60 / Wednesday, March 28, 2012 / Rules and Regulations 18707 

List of Subjects 

37 CFR Part 201 

Copyright, General provisions. 

37 CFR Part 202 

Copyright, Registration of claims to 

registration. 

Final Regulations 

In consideration of the foregoing, the 

Copyright Office amends parts 201 and 

202 of 37 CFR, as follows: 

PART 201—GENERAL PROVISIONS 

■ 1. The authority citation for part 201 

continues to read as follows: 

Authority: 17 U.S.C. 702. 

§ 201.3 [Amended] 

■ 2. Amend § 201.3(c) as follows: 

■ a. By removing the line beginning 

‘‘Form-D barcode application properly 

completed online) * * *’’ and the 

phrase ‘‘; and Form CO without 

barcodes or incomplete information, or 

information added after printing (paper 

filing)’’ from item (1) of the fee chart 

titled ‘‘Registration, Recordation and 

Related Services.’’ 

■ b. By adding ‘‘of automated databases 

that predominantly consist of 

photographs and updates thereto or 

group registration of published 

photographs’’ after ‘‘electronic filing’’ in 

item (2) of the fee chart titled 

‘‘Registration, Recordation and Related 

Services.’’ 

PART 202—PREREGISTRATION AND 

REGISTRATION OF CLAIMS TO 

COPYRIGHT 

■ 3. The authority citation for part 202 

reads as follows: 

Authority: 17 U.S.C. 409 and 702. 

§ 202.2 [Amended] 

■ 4. Amend § 202.2(b)(1) by removing 

‘‘©’’ after ‘‘in the case of a sound 

recording, the symbol’’ and adding ‘‘b’’ 

in its place. 

■ 5. Amend § 202.3 by: 

■ a. Revising paragraphs (b)(2) and 

(b)(3). 

■ b. In paragraphs (b)(10)(iv)(D) and 

(b)(10)(v) by adding ‘‘(Form GR/PPh/ 

CON)’’ after the phrase ‘‘special 

continuation sheet’’ wherever it 

appears. 

■ c. In paragraph (c)(2) introductory text 

by removing ‘‘, electronically or in 

printed form, on the appropriate form 

prescribed by the Register of Copyrights 

under’’ and by adding ‘‘by using one of 

the methods set forth in’’ in its place. 

■ d. By resdesignating footnotes 3 

through 6 as footnotes 2 through 5. 

§ 202.3 Registration of copyright. 

* * * * * 

(b) * * * 

(2) Submission of application for 

registration. For purposes of 

registration, an applicant may submit an 

application for registration of individual 

works and certain groups of works 

electronically through the Copyright 

Office’s Web site, or by using the 

printed forms prescribed by the Register 

of Copyrights. 

(i) An applicant may submit an 

application electronically through the 

Copyright Office Web site 

[www.copyright.gov]. An online 

submission requires a payment of the 

application fee through an electronic 

fund transfer, credit or debit card, or 

through a Copyright Office deposit 

account. Deposit materials in support of 

the online application may be submitted 

electronically in a digital format along 

with the application and payment, or 

deposit materials in physically tangible 

formats may be separately mailed to the 

Copyright Office, using a mailing label 

generated during the online registration 

process, or 

(ii) (A) Alternatively, an applicant 

may submit an application on one of the 

printed forms prescribed by the Register 

of Copyrights. Each printed form 

corresponds to a class set forth in 

paragraph (b)(1) of this section and is so 

designated (‘‘Form TX’’; ‘‘Short Form 

TX’’, ‘‘Form PA’’; ‘‘Short Form PA’’, 

‘‘Form VA’’; ‘‘Short Form VA’’, ‘‘Form 

SR’’; ‘‘Form SE’’; ‘‘Short Form SE’’, and 

‘‘Form SE/Group’’). 

(B) Short form applications may only 

be used if certain conditions are met. 

Short Form TX, Short Form PA, and 

Short Form VA may be used only to 

register a single work in a case when a 

living author who is the only author of 

his or her work is the sole owner of the 

copyright in the work, the work is not 

a compilation or derivative work 

containing a substantial amount of 

previously published or registered 

material, and the work is not a work 

made for hire. Short Form SE may be 

used only if the claim is in a collective 

work, the work is essentially an all-new 

collective work or issue, the author is a 

citizen or domiciliary of the United 

States, the work is a work for hire, the 

author(s) and claimant(s) are the same 

person(s) or organization(s), and the 

work was first published in the United 

States. 

(C) Printed form applications should 

be submitted in the class most 

appropriate to the nature of the 

authorship in which copyright is 

claimed. In the case of contributions to 

collective works, applications should be 

submitted in the class representing the 

copyrightable authorship in the 

contribution. In the case of derivative 

works, applications should be submitted 

in the class most appropriately 

representing the copyrightable 

authorship involved in recasting, 

transforming, adapting, or otherwise 

modifying the preexisting work. In cases 

where a work contains elements of 

authorship in which copyright is 

claimed which fall into two or more 

classes, the application should be 

submitted in the class most appropriate 

to the type of authorship that 

predominates in the work as a whole. 

However, in any case where registration 

is sought for a work consisting of or 

including a sound recording in which 

copyright is claimed, the application 

shall be submitted on Form SR. 

(D) Copies of the printed forms are 

available on the Copyright Office’s Web 

site [www.copyright.gov] and upon 

request to the Copyright Public 

Information Office, Library of Congress. 

Printed form applications may be 

completed and submitted by completing 

a printed version or using a PDF version 

of the applicable Copyright Office 

application form and mailing it together 

with the other required elements, i.e., 

physically tangible deposit copies 

and/or materials, and the required filing 

fee, all elements being placed in the 

same package and sent by mail or handdelivered to the Copyright Office. 

(3) Continuation sheets. A 

continuation sheet (Form CON) is 

appropriate only in the case when a 

printed form application is used and 

where additional space is needed by the 

applicant to provide all relevant 

information concerning a claim to 

copyright. An application may include 

more than one continuation sheet, 

subject to the limitations in paragraph 

(b)(10)(v) of this section. 

* * * * * 

Dated: March 12, 2012. 

Maria A. Pallante, 

Register of Copyrights. 

Dated: March 19, 2012. 

James H. Billington, 

The Librarian of Congress. 

[FR Doc. 2012–7429 Filed 3–27–12; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 1410–30–P 

POSTAL SERVICE 

39 CFR Part 111 

USPS Package Intercept—New Product 

Offerings 

AGENCY: Postal Service TM. 

ACTION: Final rule with comments. 


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