Federal Register / Vol. 89, No. 2 / Wednesday, January 3, 2024 / Proposed Rules 311 

1See 17 U.S.C. 408(c)(1). 

2 Id. 

3H.R. Rep. No. 94–1476, at 154 (1976), reprinted 

in 1976 U.S.C.C.A.N. 5659, 5770; S. Rep. No. 94– 

473, at 136 (1975). 

4Copyright registration is not a prerequisite to 

copyright protection, although registration generally 

must be made before instituting a civil infringement 

action in Federal court. See 17 U.S.C. 411(a); Fourth 

Estate Pub. Benefit Corp. v. Wall-Street.com, LLC, 

139 S. Ct. 881, 886 (2019). 

5 17 U.S.C. 408(c)(1). 

6H.R. Rep. No. 94–1476, at 154. 

7See 37 CFR 202.20(c)(2)(vii). For example, with 

regards to deposit requirements for computer 

programs, the Office has defined ‘‘identifying 

portions’’ as the first and last twenty-five pages of 

the work. 

8The proposed regulations define a ‘‘website’’ as 

a web page or set of interconnected web pages that 

are accessed using a uniform resource locator 

(‘‘URL’’) organized under a particular domain name. 

See also U.S. Copyright Office, Compendium of 

U.S. Copyright Office Practices sec. 1002.1 (3d ed. 

2021) (‘‘Compendium (Third)’’). For example, the 

Office’s website is located at copyright.gov, and the 

Library of Congress’s website is located at loc.gov. 

9Elisa Shearer, More Than Eight-In-Ten 

Americans Get News from Digital Devices, Pew 

Research Center (Jan. 12, 2021), https://

www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/01/12/morethan-eight-in-ten-americans-get-news-from-digitaldevices/. 

10MPA—The Association of Magazine Media 

Comments at 5, Submitted in Response to Nov. 9, 

2021 Notice of Inquiry, Publishers’ Protections 

Study, U.S. Copyright Office Dkt. No. 2021–5 (Jan. 

Continued 

The authority for this action is the 

Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (44 

U.S.C. 3501 et seq.). 

Steven H. Feldgus, 

Deputy Assistant Secretary, Land and 

Minerals Management. 

[FR Doc. 2023–27019 Filed 1–2–24; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 4310–VH–P 

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

Copyright Office 

37 CFR Parts 201 and 202 

[Docket No. 2023–8] 

Group Registration of Updates to a 

News Website 

AGENCY: U.S. Copyright Office, Library 

of Congress. 

ACTION: Notice of proposed rulemaking. 

SUMMARY: The U.S. Copyright Office is 

proposing to create a new group 

registration option for frequently 

updated news websites. The rapid pace 

at which many web-based materials are 

created and updated presents a 

challenge for copyright registrants. This 

challenge is especially pronounced for 

frequently updated news websites. This 

option will enable online news 

publishers to register a group of updates 

to a news website as a collective work 

with a deposit composed of identifying 

material representing sufficient portions 

of the works, rather than the complete 

contents of the website. The Office 

invites comment on this proposal and 

the questions below. 

DATES: Comments on the proposed rule 

must be made in writing and must be 

received by the U.S. Copyright Office no 

later than February 20, 2024. 

ADDRESSES: For reasons of government 

efficiency, the Copyright Office is using 

the regulations.gov system for the 

submission and posting of public 

comments in this proceeding. All 

comments are therefore to be submitted 

electronically through regulations.gov. 

Specific instructions for submitting 

comments are available on the 

Copyright Office website at https://

copyright.gov/rulemaking/newswebsite. 

If electronic submission of comments is 

not feasible due to lack of access to a 

computer and/or the internet, please 

contact the Office using the contact 

information below for special 

instructions. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: 

Rhea Efthimiadis, Assistant to the 

General Counsel, by email at meft@

copyright.gov or by telephone at 202– 

707–8350. 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 

I. Background 

The U.S. Copyright Office (‘‘Office’’) 

is proposing to create a new group 

registration option for frequently 

updated news websites. When Congress 

enacted the Copyright Act of 1976 

(‘‘Copyright Act’’ or ‘‘Act’’), it 

authorized the Register of Copyrights 

(‘‘Register’’) to specify by regulation the 

administrative classes of works for the 

purpose of seeking registration and the 

nature of the deposit required for each 

such class.1 Congress afforded the 

Register discretion to permit registration 

of groups of related works with one 

application and one filing fee, known as 

‘‘group registration.’’ 2 As the legislative 

history explains, allowing ‘‘a number of 

related works to be registered together 

as a group represent[ed] a needed and 

important liberalization of the law.’’ 3

In providing the Register the 

discretion to provide for group 

registrations, Congress recognized that 

requiring applicants to submit separate 

applications for certain types of works 

may be so burdensome and expensive 

that authors and copyright owners may 

forgo registration altogether.4 Group 

registration options must be designed, 

however, in a manner that balances 

claimants’ need for an efficient method 

to submit applications with the Office’s 

need to examine applications and 

provide an adequate public record. 

Exercising this statutory discretion, 

Registers have over the years issued 

regulations providing for group 

registrations for certain categories of 

works and establishing eligibility 

requirements. 

The Copyright Act also gives the 

Register broad authority to issue 

regulations concerning the nature of the 

copies that must be deposited in 

support of registration. Section 408 

provides that the Register may issue 

regulations establishing ‘‘the nature of 

the copies . . . to be deposited’’ in 

specific classes of works and to ‘‘permit, 

for particular classes, the deposit of 

identifying material instead of copies or 

phonorecords.’’ 5 The legislative history 

indicates that Congress believed that a 

deposit of identifying material should 

be permitted in cases where the copies 

or phonorecords would be too ‘‘bulky, 

unwieldy, easily broken, or otherwise 

impractical [to serve] as records 

identifying the work registered.’’ 6 The 

Office has used this authority to require 

only identifying material in certain 

circumstances. For example, for 

computer programs, automated 

databases, or other literary works fixed 

or published solely in machine-readable 

copies, the Office permits the deposit of 

‘‘identifying portions’’ of the specific 

version of the work the applicant 

intends to register.7

After receiving input from 

stakeholders and carefully considering 

the issue, the Office has concluded that 

there is a need for a new group 

registration accommodation for 

frequently updated news websites.8 The 

Office welcomes public comment on its 

proposal and subjects of inquiry set 

forth here. 

A. The Need for a New Group 

Registration Option 

This proposed rulemaking stems from 

the rapid development and 

predominance of news websites over 

print newspapers, and requests 

submitted by online publishers to the 

Office. Over the past two decades, the 

internet has become an increasingly 

common method for distributing, 

displaying, and performing 

copyrightable content. More than eight 

in ten Americans get news from digital 

devices, and, as of 2021, more than half 

prefer digital platforms to access news.9

Thus, a significant amount of news 

content must be offered in an online 

environment to meet demand. The 

current state of the news media industry 

requires dynamism, ‘‘with content 

constantly changing, updating, and 

refreshing in real time.’’ 10 Because of 


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5, 2022), https://www.regulations.gov/comment/ 

COLC-2021-0006-0044 (‘‘MPA—The Association of 

Magazine Media Comments’’). 

11Newspaper Association of America Comments 

at 12–18, Submitted in Response to July 15, 2009 

Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, Mandatory Deposit 

of Published Electronic Works Available Only 

Online, U.S. Copyright Office Dkt. No. 2009–3 (Aug. 

31, 2009) (emphasis omitted) (seeking a group 

registration option for newspaper websites), https:// 

www.copyright.gov/rulemaking/online-only/ 

comments/naa.pdf (‘‘Newspaper Association of 

America Comments’’). 

12U.S. Copyright Office, Priorities and Special 

Projects of the United States Copyright Office 

October 2011–October 2013 (2011), https://

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

13 Id. at 11. 

14 Id. 

15U.S. Copyright Office, Compendium of U.S. 

Copyright Office Practices ch. 1000 (3d ed. 2014). 

The Office published a new version of the 

Compendium (Third) in January 2021. The 2021 

version cited in this notice is available at https:// 

copyright.gov/comp3/. 

16U.S. Copyright Office, Circular 66: Copyright 

Registration of websites and website Content 

(revised Mar. 2021), https://copyright.gov/circs/ 

circ66.pdf. 

17Letter from Senators Leahy, Tillis, Cornyn, 

Hirono, Klobuchar, and Coons to Shira Perlmutter, 

Register of Copyrights, at 1 (May 3, 2021), https:// 

www.copyright.gov/policy/publishersprotections/ 

letter-to-the-copyright-office.pdf. 

18See, e.g., News Corporation Comments at 10– 

11, Submitted in Response to Oct. 12, 2021 Notice 

of Inquiry, Publishers’ Protections Study, U.S. 

Copyright Office Dkt. No. 2021–5 (Nov. 26, 2021), 

https://www.regulations.gov/comment/COLC-2021- 

0006-0016 (‘‘News Corporation Comments’’). 

19News Media Alliance Comments at 19, 

Submitted in Response to Oct. 12, 2021 Notice of 

Inquiry, Publishers’ Protections Study, U.S. 

Copyright Office Dkt. No. 2021–5 (Nov. 23, 2021), 

https://www.regulations.gov/comment/COLC-2021- 

0006-0020 (‘‘News Media Alliance Comments’’). 

20News Corporation Comments at 10. 21 Id. at 11. 22 Id. 23 17 U.S.C. 408(b)(2). The Copyright Act 

authorizes the Register to promulgate regulations 

specifying the exceptions to this general rule. 17 

U.S.C. 408(c)(1). 24One way that some litigants have attempted to 

show what was posted on a particular date is to use 

web archiving platforms like the internet Archive’s 

Wayback Machine. Courts have taken different 

approaches on whether to admit these records into 

evidence. See United States v. Gasperini, 894 F.3d 

482, 490 (2d Cir. 2018) (finding a sufficient basis 

to admit screenshots produced by the Wayback 

Machine into evidence where the office manager of 

the internet Archive ‘‘explained how the Archive 

captures and preserves evidence of the contents of 

the internet at any given time’’ and ‘‘testified that 

the screenshots were authentic and accurate copies 

of the Archive’s records’’). But see Ward v. Am. 

Airlines, Inc., No. 4:20–cv–00371–O, 2020 U.S. Dist. 

LEXIS 205771 (N.D. Tex. Oct. 16, 2020) (declining 

to take judicial notice of references from the 

Wayback Machine). 

25 37 CFR 202.20(b)(2)(iii)(B) (‘‘If the work is 

published solely in an electronic format,’’ the 

this, news publishers assert they face 

unique obstacles when it comes to 

registering their works and have 

encouraged the Office to develop 

practices for registering ‘‘newspaper 

websites’’ that are ‘‘updated 

frequently.’’ 11

B. The Office’s Prior Studies 

The Office acknowledged the news 

publishers’ concerns in previous 

statements and reports. In 2011, the 

Office released a paper titled Priorities 

and Special Projects of the United 

States Copyright Office (October 2011– 

October 2013), which acknowledged the 

challenges in registering websites and 

content published on websites.12 The 

paper noted that websites may contain 

‘‘a great number of contributions from 

many authors’’ and changes may be 

made ‘‘daily or even several times a 

day.’’ 13 It identified several issues to be 

addressed, such as the appropriate 

means for creating an accurate and 

informative record of copyright 

ownership and the appropriate form of 

the deposit. It also invited public input 

regarding whether ‘‘a group registration 

scheme [should] be implemented that 

would permit a single registration to 

cover content disseminated over a 

period of many days or weeks.’’ 14

As the Office considered stakeholder 

input in response to the paper, it issued 

public guidance to address registration 

of online content. In 2014, the Office 

released the Compendium of U.S. 

Copyright Office Practices, Third 

Edition, which contains an entire 

chapter on websites and website 

content.15 In 2017, it released a circular 

that provides additional information on 

this topic.16 These resources explain 

how to identify the author(s) and 

owner(s) of websites, website content, 

and user-generated content. They 

identify factors that may determine 

whether a work has been published 

online; discuss the distinctions between 

copyrightable authorship and 

uncopyrightable material, and between 

a website and an online database; and 

provide step-by-step instructions for 

completing a registration application 

and preparing a deposit for an online 

work. 

Although these resources offer 

guidance for registering online content, 

news publishers have continued to 

express concern about the difficulty of 

registering frequently updated websites. 

As discussed in detail below, applicants 

who seek to register dynamic news 

websites are currently required to 

submit a separate application, deposit, 

and filing fee for each website update. 

This is particularly costly and timeconsuming for news content, which can 

be added, modified, or removed on a 

daily or hourly basis. 

The Office also looked at some of 

these issues as part of its 2021 study 

assessing press publishers’ existing 

protections under U.S. copyright law. 

That study, and its resulting 2022 

report, Copyright Protections for Press 

Publishers, was undertaken after a series 

of congressional hearings on reforms to 

digital copyright law, which considered 

what changes ‘‘are needed to ensure the 

growth of creative industries without 

undermining incentives for digital 

platforms and technologies.’’ 17 As part 

of the study, the Office requested public 

input on the effectiveness of current 

copyright protections for press 

publishers. It received feedback from 

news publishers that registration 

challenges make registering frequently 

updated news content impracticable.18

They expressed frustration that ‘‘[t]he 

inability to register dynamic and 

voluminous website content is a 

foundational enforcement 

shortcoming.’’ 19 They stated that, 

because ‘‘[t]here is currently no feasible 

way to apply for a single group 

registration of the full contents of a 

dynamic news media website, on which 

articles are constantly being published 

and updated,’’ 20 it is ‘‘beyond difficult 

for news publishers to acquire 

meaningful copyright protection for 

their output,’’ 21 and stated that, ‘‘with 

no feasible means to access all of the 

statutory remedies for infringement of 

their online news content,’’ infringers 

are left ‘‘free to pick and choose from 

works among that content without fear 

of significant or immediate 

consequence.’’ 22

C. Deposit-Related Challenges 

The Office is aware that one of the 

biggest challenges in registering a 

website is providing a deposit that 

displays the work in its entirety. 

Copyright registration of published 

works generally requires the submission 

of two complete copies of the best 

edition of the work.23 In addition to 

their use in the examination process, 

deposits serve as a record of the 

contents of a work. They can also serve 

an important evidentiary function if the 

copyright owner did not create or 

maintain an archive copy of a work 

before making updates. For example, a 

copyright owner who registered the 

updates to a website could use the 

deposits to confirm that a specific 

contribution was posted on a particular 

date and did not appear in earlier 

versions of the same website.24

The deposit requirements for a 

website vary depending on the nature of 

the claim and the type and number of 

works being registered. If an applicant 

created one of the individual works on 

a website—such as an article, blog entry, 

or photograph—the applicant ordinarily 

should submit a complete copy of that 

work.25 If, however, the applicant 


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deposit is considered ‘‘complete’’ if it contains ‘‘all 

elements constituting the work in its published 

form, i.e., the complete work as published, 

including metadata and authorship for which 

registration is not sought.’’). 

26As with any other claim, the registration will 

not cover ‘‘unclaimable material,’’ which includes 

previously published or registered material, 

material that is in the public domain, copyrightable 

material that is owned by a third party, or material 

generated by artificial intelligence without human 

authorship. See Compendium (Third) sec. 509.2; 88 

FR 16190, 16192 (Mar. 16, 2023). 

27See 37 CFR 202.20(b)(2)(iii)(B) (‘‘Publication in 

an electronic only format requires submission of the 

digital file(s) in exact first-publication form and 

content.’’); see also Compendium (Third) sec. 1010. 

28See, e.g., Newspaper Association of America 

Comments at 12–18 (‘‘The burden of requiring a 

separate registration for each publication date of a 

newspaper website, with a print-out or other 

physical copy, is a powerful disincentive, if not a 

virtual bar, to registration.’’); News Media Alliance 

Comments at 19 (highlighting ‘‘[t]he inability to 

register . . . voluminous website content’’ as a 

‘‘foundational enforcement shortcoming’’). 

29The list of acceptable file formats is posted on 

the Office’s website at https://www.copyright.gov/ 

eco/help-file-types.html. 

30See Modernization, U.S. Copyright Office, 

https://copyright.gov/copyright-modernization/ (last 

visited Dec. 21, 2023); 85 FR 12704 (Mar. 3, 2020); 

83 FR 52336 (Oct. 17, 2018). 

31See Compendium (Third) sec. 1010. 

32 37 CFR 202.4(h), (i). 

33 85 FR 37341 (June 22, 2020). 

34Compare 17 U.S.C. 101 (defining a collective 

work as ‘‘a work’’ and recognizing that ‘‘[t]he term 

‘compilation’ includes collective works’’) with 17 

U.S.C. 504(c)(1) (‘‘all the parts of a compilation . . . 

constitute one work’’). A collective work is a type 

of compilation. Therefore, a collective work must 

meet the same statutory requirement as a 

compilation; there must be a sufficiently creative 

selection, coordination, or arrangement of the 

component works. 

35 17 U.S.C. 101 (definitions of ‘‘compilation’’ and 

‘‘collective work’’). 

36See H.R. Rep. No. 94–1476, at 120 (noting that 

the ‘‘key’’ element in creating a collective work is 

the ‘‘assemblage or gathering of ‘separate and 

independent works . . . into a collective whole’ ’’). 

selected, coordinated, and/or arranged 

the content on the website, and owns 

the copyright in some or all of the 

content, then it may register the 

collective work and the individual 

contributions it owns with the same 

submission.26 In this situation, the 

deposit should reflect the collective 

work authorship, by displaying the 

component works as they would appear 

when viewed on the website.27

Typically, this requires the applicant to 

include a complete copy of the entire 

website as published on a particular 

date. 

The Office recognizes that submitting 

a complete copy of an entire dynamic 

website has been difficult for many 

applicants and causes problems for the 

Office as well.28 Perhaps the most 

common problem occurs when 

applicants submit individual folders 

containing hundreds or thousands of 

disaggregated files that do not show the 

organization of the website. Similar 

problems result from the submission of 

individual PDF (Portable Document 

Format) pages that display the website 

in a linear fashion without showing the 

coordination and/or arrangement of the 

web pages in relation to each other. In 

other cases, applicants attempt to 

register a website by submitting the 

hypertext markup language (HTML) 

establishing the format and layout of the 

content on the site rather than visually 

depicting it. 

Current technological means for fixing 

and normalizing website content for 

copyright deposit purposes are limited. 

The Office’s current registration system 

only accepts certain file types that could 

display the image of a website, such as 

PDF, JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts 

Group), DWF (Autodesk Design), BMP 

(BitMap Image), GIF (Graphics 

Interchange Format), TIFF (Tagged 

Image File Format), and PUB (Microsoft 

Publisher).29 The Office is developing a 

new Enterprise Copyright System 

(‘‘ECS’’) that will include new 

capabilities for uploading large files and 

large numbers of files. The Office is also 

exploring the acceptance of new file 

formats, such as .epub, that may better 

enable the fixation of online content.30

But for the time being, the Office 

encourages applicants to submit website 

claims in a PDF package.31

When a website is fixed in a PDF 

package, the Office should be able to 

view the website as it existed on the 

date identified in the registration 

application, and to examine the 

compilation authorship involved in 

selecting, coordinating, and/or arranging 

the website as a whole. The Office 

recognizes that this is not a solution for 

all applicants. Some applicants are able 

to fix certain aspects of a website in a 

PDF package but find it difficult to fix 

it in a way that depicts the complete 

website. For large websites, such as 

news media websites, the resulting file 

may include hundreds or even 

thousands of pages, which makes it 

difficult for the Office to examine the 

selection, coordination, and 

arrangement of the website as a whole. 

Additionally, the organization and 

arrangement shown in a PDF package 

may vary depending on whether it 

depicts the website as it would appear 

on a desktop computer, a mobile phone, 

or other electronic device. Capturing the 

website by saving pages in PDF format 

may also include selection and 

arrangement that was not created by a 

human author, such as advertisements 

inserted into the website by an 

algorithm. Moreover, a PDF package 

only captures component works 

consisting of text, photographs, or 

pictorial or graphic material. 

D. Existing Registration Options 

News website publishers have 

described to the Office the limitations of 

the existing registration options 

available to them. Specifically, they 

explain that registering each individual 

update to a website separately is not 

practical or feasible. The Office has 

reviewed its registration options and 

concludes that there is substantial need 

for a new option for online news 

websites that are frequently updated. 

Current group registration options are 

not sufficient because they require all 

works within the group to have the 

same author. For example, an applicant 

may register up to 750 photographs with 

the same application, if they were all 

created by the same author and are 

owned by the same claimant.32

Similarly, another group registration 

option allows registration of up to fifty 

blog entries, social media posts, and 

other short online literary works if the 

works were all created by the same 

individual and published within a 

three-month period.33 Because news 

websites are typically collective works 

that include the individual 

contributions of multiple authors, such 

an approach to group registrations is not 

a good fit for their publishers. 

Another existing registration option 

for a website including works authored 

by multiple authors is to register it as a 

collective work. Although collective 

works contain multiple works of 

authorship, they are considered ‘‘one 

work’’ for purposes of registration.34 A 

website can be a collective work if it 

contains ‘‘a number of contributions’’ 

that constitute ‘‘separate and 

independent works in themselves,’’ and 

if those contributions ‘‘are assembled 

into a collective whole’’ ‘‘in such a way 

that the resulting work as a whole 

constitutes an original work of 

authorship.’’ 35 A registration for a 

collective work covers the authorship 

involved in selecting and arranging 

component works into a collective 

whole.36 In the case of a website, this 

typically involves selecting, 

coordinating, and arranging the various 

web pages that make up the site, as well 

as the selection, coordination, and 

arrangement of the separate and 

independent works on each individual 

web page. 

A registration for a collective work 

may also cover the individual works 

that make up the collective work if 

certain requirements are met. The 

Copyright Act provides that the 

copyright in a collective work ‘‘extends 


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37 17 U.S.C. 103(b). 

38 Id. at 201(c). The Act further states that ‘‘[i]n 

the absence of an express transfer of the copyright’’ 

in a particular contribution, ‘‘the owner of 

copyright in the collective work is presumed to 

have acquired only the privilege of reproducing and 

distributing the contribution as part of that 

particular collective work, any revision of that 

collective work, and any later collective work in the 

same series.’’ Id. 

39A contribution to a collective work is ‘‘fully 

owned’’ by the publisher if it owns all of the 

exclusive rights in that contribution. See, e.g., 

Morris v. Business Concepts, Inc., 259 F.3d 65, 68 

(2d Cir. 2001) (‘‘Unless the copyright owner of a 

collective work also owns all the rights in a 

constituent part, a collective work registration will 

not extend to the constituent part.’’), abrogated on 

other grounds by Reed Elsevier, Inc. v. Muchnick, 

559 U.S. 154, 160 (2010); Compendium (Third) 

secs. 509.1, 509.2. 

40See Sohm v. Scholastic Inc., 959 F.3d 39, 53 

(2d Cir. 2020) (registration of a compilation of 

photographs by an applicant that owns the rights 

to the component works also registers the 

individual photographs even where the copyright 

application did not list the individual authors of the 

photographs); Metro. Reg’l Info. Sys., Inc. v. Am. 

Home Realty Network, Inc., 722 F.3d 591, 598 (4th 

Cir. 2013) (‘‘[C]ollective work registrations [are] 

sufficient to permit an infringement action on 

behalf of component works, at least so long as the 

registrant owns the rights to the component works 

as well.’’); Alaska Stock, LLC v. Houghton Mifflin 

Harcourt Publ’g Co., 747 F.3d 673, 683, 685 (9th Cir. 

2014) (a collective work registration ‘‘extended 

registration to the component parts if the party 

registering the collective work owned the copyright 

to the component parts’’). 

41See 17 U.S.C. 103(b) (‘‘The copyright in a 

compilation . . . extends only to the material 

contributed by the author of such work, as 

distinguished from the preexisting material 

employed in the work, and does not imply any 

exclusive right in the preexisting material.’’); 

Compendium (Third) secs. 509, 509.1, 509.2. 

42See Compendium (Third) sec. 509.2 (providing 

that a collective work registration does not cover 

contributions that were previously published or 

registered). 

43 17 U.S.C. 504(c)(1) (‘‘For the purposes of this 

subsection, all the parts of a compilation or 

derivative work constitute one work.’’). 

44See id. at 411(a). 

45 Id. at 504(c)(1). 

46For such applications, the Office will not 

examine each component work. Thus, the collective 

work claimant will bear the burden of proving that 

it owns the individual component works claimed in 

the submission. 

47See 37 CFR 202.4(e)(1). 

48See, e.g., News Media Alliance Comments at 2, 

Submitted in Response to Nov. 6, 2017 Notice of 

Proposed Rulemaking, Group Registration of 

only to the material contributed by the 

author of such work, as distinguished 

from the preexisting material employed 

in the work.’’ 37 The ‘‘[c]opyright in each 

separate contribution to a collective 

work is distinct from copyright in the 

collective work as a whole, and vests 

initially in the author of the 

contribution.’’ 38 If the claimant fully 

owns the copyright in those 

contributions,39 however, courts have 

held that a collective work registration 

may also cover the contributions that 

make up the collective work.40 The 

Office has taken a similar position.41

Collective work registration, however, 

may not be a satisfactory option for 

website publishers. First, as discussed 

above, providing a complete deposit of 

a website is challenging. Second, even 

if the collective work registration 

extends to all the individual 

components of a specific website, the 

registration would extend only to the 

material in the deposit that was owned 

by the copyright claimant as of the 

effective date of registration. An 

applicant would need to prepare a new 

registration application for any 

subsequent changes made to that 

website, which would be as burdensome 

and expensive as other options. Third, 

a collective work registration would not 

provide protection for any individual 

works that have been previously 

published.42 Finally, when a website is 

registered as a compilation, the statute 

provides that the copyright owner may 

seek only one award of statutory 

damages for infringement of the 

compilation as a whole—rather than a 

separate award for each individual work 

that appears on the website—even if the 

defendant infringed all of the works 

covered by the registration.43

Alternatively, a website owner could 

choose to register a few individual 

works from the website, instead of the 

website as a whole. This alternative 

might appeal to a website owner who 

does not fully own the copyright in all 

of the component works that make up 

the website, struggles to create a deposit 

copy of the entire website, or wants to 

retain the possibility of collecting 

multiple statutory damages awards. If a 

website owner were concerned that the 

entire contents of the website could be 

copied or scraped by a third party, 

registering one or more of the 

component works on the website and 

providing deposit copies of only those 

component works should be sufficient 

to initiate a claim for infringement.44

And if more than one of the individual 

works were registered in a timely 

manner, these registrations may provide 

a means for seeking attorneys’ fees and 

multiple statutory damages awards in an 

infringement action.45

This approach too has limitations. 

Registration of select works individually 

only protects the copyright owner if an 

infringer copies the specific works that 

were registered. It also does not offer 

protection for the selection, 

coordination, or arrangement of the 

website as a whole, which may be an 

important element of the authorship of 

the website. 

II. A New Framework for Registering 

News Websites 

The Office proposes a new rule 

pursuant to which a news publisher will 

be able to register a news website as a 

collective work (including any 

individual component works it fully 

owns, such as literary works, 

photographs, and/or graphics) 46 with a 

deposit composed of identifying 

material, rather than the complete 

contents of the website. The material 

may include representative examples of 

the updates published in a calendar 

month, provided that they represent 

sufficient portions of selection, 

coordination or arrangement authorship. 

The works must be created by the same 

entity, and that entity must be named as 

the copyright claimant for the collective 

work. Each of these requirements is 

discussed below. 

A. Eligibility Requirements 

Due to the potential number of 

updates in this group option, and to 

limit the accommodation that permits 

identifying material rather than 

complete copies, the Office will strictly 

apply all of the eligibility requirements. 

To facilitate compliance with the 

requirements, the Office will provide a 

checklist for applicants, as well as 

additional guidance through its 

publications. 

1. Works That May Be Included in the 

Group 

The proposed rule will limit this 

registration option to ‘‘news websites.’’ 

A ‘‘website’’ will be defined as a web 

page or set of interconnected web pages 

that are accessed using a URL organized 

under a particular domain name. In 

addition, a ‘‘website’’ will include any 

web page whose URL incorporates the 

primary domain name for that site. For 

example, any web page that includes the 

URL ‘‘copyright.gov/’’ would be 

considered part of the Office’s website, 

regardless of the length of the file name. 

By contrast, any web page that includes 

the URL ‘‘loc.gov/’’ would be considered 

a different website, even though 

copyright.gov and loc.gov are linked to 

each other, stored on the same servers, 

and emanate from the same agency. 

The Office proposes to model the 

definition of ‘‘news website’’ after the 

regulation defining a ‘‘newspaper.’’ 47

This approach is consistent with the 

goal of this rulemaking—to address 

obstacles to registering online news 

content produced by news publishers, 

who often also publish newspapers. The 

Office’s ‘‘newspaper’’ definition has 

been generally accepted by these 

publishers.48 A ‘‘news website’’ will be 


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Newspapers, U.S. Copyright Office Dkt. No. 2017– 

16 (Dec. 6, 2017), https://www.regulations.gov/ 

comment/COLC-2017-0010-0005 (‘‘News Media 

Alliance—Group Registration of Newspapers 

Comments’’). 

49A compilation is ‘‘a work formed by the 

collection and assembling of preexisting materials 

or of data that are selected, coordinated, or arranged 

in such a way that the resulting work as a whole 

constitutes an original work of authorship.’’ 17 

U.S.C. 101. 

50See Morris, 259 F.3d at 71 (‘‘Unless the 

copyright owner of a collective work also owns all 

the rights in a constituent part, a collective work 

registration will not extend to the constituent 

part.’’). 

51See 37 CFR 202.4(p). 

52See, e.g., News Media Alliance—Group 

Registration of Newspapers Comments at 2. 

53The Grand Rapids Gazette name and associated 

URL are fictitious and used merely to illustrate the 

proposed rule’s operation. 

54See Modernization, U.S. Copyright Office, 

https://copyright.gov/copyright-modernization/ (last 

Continued 

defined as a website that is mainly 

designed to be a primary source of 

written information on current events, 

either local, national, or international in 

scope, that contains a broad range of 

news on all subjects and activities and 

is not limited to any specific subject 

matter. 

2. The Collective Work Requirement 

This new group registration option 

would cover a group of collective works, 

and the electronic registration system 

will automatically add the term 

‘‘collective work authorship’’ to the 

group news websites application. As a 

type of compilation, each collective 

work must contain a sufficiently 

creative selection, coordination, or 

arrangement of the individual 

component works, such as articles, 

photographs, illustrations, or other 

content.49 Whether the content itself is 

entirely new is irrelevant to this 

determination. An update to a news 

website could be considered original if 

it contains a new selection, 

coordination, and arrangement of 

content, even if that individual content 

has been previously published on the 

website—such as articles appearing in 

previous updates. 

A collective work will be eligible for 

this registration option if it was first 

published on a publicly accessible 

website, including news websites 

protected by paywalls. This option will 

also be available where the work was 

simultaneously published both on the 

internet and in a physical form. Each 

collective work within the group will be 

considered a separate work for purposes 

of section 504(c)(1). 

As a general rule, a registration under 

this group option will cover the 

individual contributions contained 

within the collective work if they are 

fully owned by the copyright claimant 

and if they were first published in that 

work. By contrast, if a collective work 

contains contributions that are not fully 

owned by the copyright claimant, and/ 

or contributions that were previously 

published, the registration will not 

extend to those works.50

3. One Month Limitation 

Under the proposed rule, an applicant 

can include updates published on the 

same website within the same calendar 

month. Applicants will be required to 

identify the earliest and latest date that 

updates were published on the website 

during the month specified in the 

application. Claims bearing dates 

outside of the single calendar month 

will be refused.51

The Office proposes one calendar 

month as the appropriate limit for this 

option based on several considerations, 

including consultations with news 

media representatives and experience 

with the group registration option for 

print newspapers.52 As discussed 

below, applicants will be required to 

submit their claims through the current 

registration system. To minimize the 

need for additional development, the 

Office intends to use the application 

designated for group newspapers for 

this purpose. This form may be used to 

register up to one month of newspaper 

issues, and it contains technical 

validations that prevent applicants from 

entering publication dates that are more 

than one month apart. Because 

newspaper and news website claims 

will be submitted on the same form, it 

will be necessary to limit both claims to 

the same one-month time period. 

Permitting registration of one calendar 

month of daily updates to the same 

news website represents an appropriate 

balance between the interests of 

copyright owners and the administrative 

capabilities of the Office. The Office 

does not currently have the ability to 

charge differential prices based on the 

number of works in the group or the 

complexity of the claim. Given the 

technical limitations of the existing 

registration system and the modest 

filing fee that would be involved, a 

reasonable limit on the number of works 

included in each claim is necessary to 

manage the administrative burden. In 

the future, the Office may consider 

whether a different time range may be 

preferable once it has introduced its 

new enterprise copyright system. 

4. Authorship, Ownership, and Work 

Made for Hire Requirements 

Each collective work in the group 

must have been created as a work made 

for hire, with the same person or entity 

named as the author and copyright 

claimant. Applicants may not submit 

groups of collective works created by 

different authors (such as twenty-five 

collective works by Online News, Inc. 

and twenty-five collective works by 

Sports Net, Inc.), even if those collective 

works appear on the same website. 

5. Title and URL 

Applicants will be required to provide 

a title that identifies the news website. 

In all cases, the title must include the 

URL for the site. For example, if the 

applicant is registering the online 

version of the Grand Rapids Gazette, the 

Office would accept a title such as 

‘‘grgazzette.michigannews’’ or Grand 

Rapids Gazette 

(grgazette.michigannews).’’ 53

A title for the group of collective 

works as a whole will be created 

automatically by the electronic 

registration system and will be used to 

identify the registration in the Office’s 

online public record. The group title 

will include the website title and the 

publication dates provided in the 

application. For example, if the 

applicant provides the title 

‘‘grgazette.michigannews’’ and states 

that the earliest collective work in the 

group was published on March 1, 2024, 

and the most recent one was published 

on March 31, 2024, the system will 

generate the following group title: 

‘‘grgazette.michigannews. [Published: 

2024–03–01 to 2024–03–31. Issues: 

March 2024].’’ In this respect, the group 

title will be similar to the format of the 

group title currently used for 

registration of a group of newspaper 

issues. 

Subject of Inquiry: The Office seeks 

public comments regarding whether it 

should give applicants the opportunity 

to provide additional information, such 

as individual article or photograph 

titles, as part of this group registration 

option. The Office will balance the 

public interest in creating a meaningful 

record (i.e., collecting information 

regarding each individual contribution 

within the collective work) with the 

relative burden on applicants. We 

welcome comments regarding the 

impact on news publishers if they were 

permitted to provide granular 

information concerning the individual 

articles, photographs, and other 

component works for each group of 

news websites. 

B. Application Requirements 

The Office plans to create a new 

application form for this group 

registration option in its next-generation 

registration system.54 In the interim, it 


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visited Dec. 21, 2023) (tracking the Office’s work to 

develop and implement a new enterprise IT system, 

including a registration module). 

55 In appropriate circumstances, the Office may 

waive the online filing requirement, subject to the 

conditions the Associate Register of Copyrights and 

Director of the Office of Registration Policy and 

Practice may impose. 

56See, e.g., 86 FR 10820, 10822 (Feb. 23, 2022) 

(final rule for group registration of works on an 

album of music); 85 FR 37341, 37345 (June 22, 

2020) (final rule for group registration of short 

online literary works); 83 FR 61546, 61546–48 (Nov. 

30, 2018) (final rule for group registration of 

newsletters and serials); 82 FR 29410, 29410–11 

(June 29, 2017) (final rule for group registration of 

contributions to periodicals). 

57Likewise, the online-filing requirement will 

apply to the ‘‘supplementary registration’’ 

procedure, which may be used to correct or amplify 

the information in an existing registration. The 

Office has announced that if it ‘‘move[s] 

registrations for other classes of works into the 

electronic registration system,’’ the procedure for 

correcting or amplifying those registrations would 

‘‘be subject to this same [online filing] 

requirement.’’ 81 FR 86656, 86658 (Dec. 1, 2016). 

Thus, if an applicant needs to correct or amplify the 

information in a registration for a news website, 

that request will need to be submitted through the 

electronic registration system, instead of using a 

paper form. See 37 CFR 202.6(e)(1) (requiring a 

supplementary registration for a group of related 

works to be made using the online application). 

58 37 CFR 202.4(e)(5); see also 83 FR 4144, 4144 

(Jan. 30, 2018) (final rule for group registration of 

newspapers). 

59See MPA–The Association of Magazine Media 

Comments at 1, 4; News Corporation Comments at 

4–7. 

60To be clear, each PDF will contain a 

representative example of what the home page 

looked like at a particular point on a particular date. 

The PDFs, however, will not show how the home 

page looked at any other point in time. Nor will the 

PDFs contain any of the content that appeared 

elsewhere on the website. 

61Applicants would be required to submit their 

deposits to the Office in PDF and assembled in an 

orderly form. Each copy of the home page must be 

contained in a separate electronic file, and the size 

of each file must not exceed 500 megabytes. If 

necessary, applicants may save the files in a .zip 

folder and upload it to the system, provided that all 

of the files within the folder are acceptable file 

types. 

62See 37 CFR 201.3(c)(8) (listing registration fee 

for ‘‘a group of newspapers or a group of 

newsletters’’). 

will use one of the current group 

registration application forms to process 

these claims in the registration system. 

As mentioned above, applicants will be 

required to submit their claims through 

the electronic registration system, and to 

use the application designated for a 

group of newspaper issues.55 Further 

instructions on how to complete this 

application will be provided by the 

Office through traditional avenues, 

including its website, circulars, or 

Chapter 1100 of the Compendium of 

U.S. Copyright Office Practices. 

Recently, the Office finalized new 

regulations and amended other 

regulations to require other group 

registration claims to be filed 

electronically, and the rationales for 

requiring electronic submission set forth 

in those rulemakings would apply 

equally here.56 Publishers who create 

and publish these types of works will 

necessarily have access to the internet 

and will be capable of using the 

electronic registration system.57 Given 

that the Office has required newspaper 

publishers to use the electronic 

registration system to register groups of 

newspapers since March 1, 2018, it does 

not anticipate objection to this 

requirement.58

C. Deposit Requirement 

The Office finds it necessary to 

modify the general complete-copy 

requirement to enable the registration of 

dynamic news websites. As noted 

above, Congress provided the Office 

with the authority to create group 

registration options and to allow 

flexibility in the content of the deposit 

to foster registrations that otherwise 

would be unduly burdensome. 

Requiring applicants to provide 

complete deposits of each news website 

imposes a significant and even 

unachievable burden on applicants, 

discouraging registration and making 

the news content increasingly 

vulnerable to infringement.59 While the 

Office is reluctant to depart from its 

general rule, which would require the 

entire contents of the website and each 

update, a different rule is appropriate 

here in a specific context where a need 

for flexibility in deposit requirements 

has been established. The proposed 

modification will also satisfy the public 

notice function of capturing, and 

making available for public inspection, 

a deposit that should be sufficient to 

identify the news website covered by 

the registration. To the extent the 

copyright owner may be required to 

prove to a court or to an alleged 

infringer the specific contents of a 

website at any particular point in time, 

it will need to preserve and maintain its 

own copy of the site and rely on its own 

recordkeeping to provide such proof.60

Subject of Inquiry: To further satisfy 

the public record and assist in later 

potential litigation efforts, the applicant 

may provide in the ‘‘Note to Office’’ 

field additional information regarding 

the contents of the work, such as 

archived URLs that capture the 

complete content of each collective 

work submitted for registration. 

Archived URLs preserve copies of web 

pages and display them as they 

appeared when captured. The Office 

seeks public comments on the 

availability and effectiveness of 

technological solutions for saving or 

archiving websites that could assist or 

supplement news websites’ 

recordkeeping efforts while also 

informing the public of the contents of 

the website and/or any updates 

registered. 

Under the proposed rule, applicants 

will be required to submit a deposit that 

is sufficient to identify some of the 

updates that were made to the website. 

Specifically, applicants will need to 

submit separate PDF files that each 

contain a complete copy of the home 

page for the site. Each PDF must show 

how the home page appeared at a 

specific point during each day of the 

calendar month when new updates were 

published on the site.61 Up to thirty-one 

PDFs may be needed for each 

application since new updates could be 

published any day of the month. But 

each PDF would need to show only one 

of the updates that were published on 

those dates, not each and every update 

made. 

In each case, the deposit must 

demonstrate that the home page 

contains a sufficient degree of selection, 

coordination, and/or arrangement to be 

registered as a collective work. If the 

Office determines that the home page 

does not contain sufficient collective 

work authorship, the examiner may 

request additional pages from the 

website. 

As noted above, all claims registered 

under this option would be limited to 

the collective work authorship based on 

the selection, coordination, and/or 

arrangement of the individual 

component works, and all parts of the 

collective work will constitute one work 

for purposes of 17 U.S.C. 504(c)(1). If 

the Office registers the claim, the 

registration may cover the individual 

component works that the claimant 

owns. The certificate, however, will 

include an annotation confirming that 

the Office examined the home page for 

collective work authorship, but did not 

review any of the component works that 

appear in the deposit to determine if 

they are copyrightable or if they are 

owned by the claimant. 

D. Filing Fee 

The filing fee for this option will be 

$95, the same fee that currently applies 

to a claim in a group of newspapers.62

As mentioned above, the Office does not 

have the ability at this time to charge 

differential prices based on the number 

of works in the group or the complexity 

of the claim. At least initially, the Office 

believes it is reasonable to charge the 

same fee for this new group registration 

option as for the group newspaper 

option, given the similarities in 

expected workflow associated with 


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examining these claims. With the 

benefit of additional data the Office will 

gather after this group registration 

option is launched, the Office will 

consider whether it would be 

appropriate to charge a different fee in 

its next-generation registration system. 

III. Conclusion 

The Office anticipates that the 

proposed rule will lead to broader 

participation in the registration system 

by facilitating the registration process 

for news publishers who frequently 

update news content published on the 

internet. To better inform the path 

forward, the Office seeks public 

comment on the proposed rule generally 

and the specific subjects of inquiry 

highlighted above. 

List of Subjects 

37 CFR Part 201 

Copyright, General provisions. 

37 CFR Part 202 

Copyright, Copyright claims, 

preregistration and registration. 

Proposed Regulations 

For the reasons set forth in the 

preamble, the Copyright Office proposes 

amending 37 CFR parts 201 and 202 as 

follows: 

PART 201—GENERAL PROVISIONS 

■ 1. The authority citation for part 201 

continues to read as follows: 

Authority: 17 U.S.C. 702. 

Section 201.10 also issued under 17 U.S.C. 

304. 

■ 2. In § 201.3, amend table 1 to 

paragraph (c) by redesignating 

paragraphs (c)(12) through (c)(29) as 

(c)(13) through (c)(30), respectively, and 

adding a new paragraph (c)(12) to read 

as follows: 

§ 201.3 Fees for registration, recordation, 

and related services, special services, and 

services performed by the Licensing 

Section and the Copyright Claims Board. 

* * * * * 

(c) * * * 

TABLE 1 TO PARAGRAPH (c) 

Registration, recordation, and 

related services 

Fees 

($) 

* * * * * 

(12) Registration of a group 

of updates to a news 

website .............................. 95 

* * * * * 

* * * * * 

PART 202—PREREGISTRATION AND 

REGISTRATION OF CLAIMS TO 

COPYRIGHT 

■ 3. The authority citation for part 202 

continues to read as follows: 

Authority: 17 U.S.C. 408(f), 702. 

■ 4. Amend § 202.4 by adding paragraph 

(m) and revising paragraph (r) to read as 

follows: 

§ 202.4 Group registration. 

* * * * * 

(m) Group registration of updates to a 

news website. Pursuant to the authority 

granted by 17 U.S.C. 408(c)(1), the 

Register of Copyrights has determined 

that a group of updates to a news 

website may be registered with one 

application, the required deposit, and 

the filing fee required by § 201.3 of this 

chapter, with each update being 

registered as a collective work, if the 

following conditions are met: 

(1) Definitions. For the purposes of 

paragraph (m) of this section: (i) News 

website means a website that is designed 

to be a primary source of written 

information on current events, either 

local, national, or international in scope, 

that contains a broad range of news on 

all subjects and activities and is not 

limited to any specific subject matter. 

(ii) Website means a web page or set 

of interconnected web pages that are 

accessed using a uniform resource 

locator (‘‘URL’’) organized under a 

particular domain name. 

(2) Requirements for collective works. 

Each update to the website must be a 

collective work, and the claim must be 

limited to the collective work. 

(3) Author and claimant. Each 

collective work in the group must be a 

work made for hire, and the author and 

claimant for each collective work must 

be the same person or organization. 

(4) Updates must be from one news 

website; time period covered. Each 

collective work in the group must be 

published on the same news website 

under the same URL, and they must be 

published within the same calendar 

month. The applicant must identify the 

earliest and latest date that the 

collective works were published. 

(5) Application. The applicant must 

complete and submit the online 

application designated for a group of 

newspaper issues. The application may 

be submitted by any of the parties listed 

in § 202.3(c)(1). 

(6) Deposit. (i) For each collective 

work within the group, the applicant 

must submit identifying material from 

the news website. For these purposes 

‘‘identifying material’’ shall mean 

separate Portable Document Format 

(PDF) files that each contain a complete 

copy of the home page of the website. 

Each PDF must show how the home 

page appeared at a specific point during 

each day of the calendar month when 

new updates were published on the 

website. 

(ii) The identifying material must 

demonstrate that the home page 

contains sufficient selection, 

coordination, and arrangement 

authorship to be registered as a 

collective work If the home page does 

not demonstrate sufficient compilation 

authorship, the deposit should include 

as many additional pages as necessary 

to demonstrate that the updates to the 

news website can be registered as a 

collective work. 

(iii) The identifying material must be 

submitted through the electronic 

registration system, and all of the 

identifying material that was published 

on a particular date must be contained 

in the same electronic file. The files 

must be submitted in PDF format, they 

must be assembled in an orderly form, 

and each file must be uploaded to the 

electronic registration system as an 

individual electronic file (i.e., not .zip 

files). The file size for each uploaded 

file must not exceed 500 megabytes, but 

files may be compressed to comply with 

this requirement. 

(7) Special relief. In an exceptional 

case, the Copyright Office may waive 

the online filing requirement set forth in 

paragraph (m)(5) of this section or may 

grant special relief from the deposit 

requirement under § 202.20(d) of this 

chapter, subject to such conditions as 

the Associate Register of Copyrights and 

Director of the Office of Registration 

Policy and Practice may impose on the 

applicant. 

* * * * * 

(r) The scope of a group registration. 

When the Office issues a group 

registration under paragraph (d), (e), or 

(f) of this section, the registration covers 

each issue in the group and each issue 

is registered as a separate work or a 

separate collective work (as the case 

may be). When the Office issues a group 

registration under paragraph (c), (g), (h), 

(i), (j), (k), or (o) of this section, the 

registration covers each work in the 

group and each work is registered as a 

separate work. When the Office issues a 

group registration under paragraph (m) 

of this section, the registration covers 

each update in the group, and each 

update is registered as a separate 

collective work. For purposes of 


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318 Federal Register / Vol. 89, No. 2 / Wednesday, January 3, 2024 / Proposed Rules 

registration, the group as a whole is not 

considered a compilation, a collective 

work, or a derivative work under section 

101, 103(b), or 504(c)(1) of title 17 of the 

United States Code. 

* * * * * 

Dated: December 22, 2023. 

Suzanne Wilson, 

General Counsel and Associate Register of 

Copyrights. 

[FR Doc. 2023–28724 Filed 1–2–24; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 1410–30–P 


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