Artists, Scholars Take Copyright Office on a Creative Adventure
Four adventurers join the U.S. Copyright Office on July 31 with presentations about their travels and their creativity.
Archive for 2019 (20 posts)
Apollo 11 and the Copyright Connection
Copyright issues were part of the Apollo 11 mission, which launched fifty years ago this year, and continue to be relevant today.
Next Steps in the Music Modernization Act
If asked, many of us would easily be able to identify our favorite song or tune, and often to even quote verbatim (e.g., sing embarrassingly off-key) the actual bridge, melody, or lyrics that made that song so special. Whether it is the way a song made us laugh or reflected our innermost desires and fears, […]
The Life of a New Registration Specialist
For a deeper dive into the Office’s recent efforts to successfully improve registration pendency times, as well as a historical look at registration, see the Office’s response to Congressional letters received on March 14 and April 3 regarding registration processing times. I was very excited to be selected as one of the twenty-five examiners hired […]
Copyrighting Leaves of Grass
Not only is the Library of Congress celebrating the 200th anniversary of Walt Whitman’s birth all month, but May is also the anniversary of Leaves of Grass, one of Whitman’s best-known works. Walter Whitman (as he called himself then) registered his copyright for the first edition of Leaves of Grass on May 15, 1855, in […]
Moving Forward with the Copyright Office
It is an honor and pleasure to reintroduce myself to you as the United States Register of Copyrights. As the Supreme Court has said, copyright is intended to be the “engine of free expression.” The copyright system provides a critical framework to support creativity, culture, innovation and, yes, “free expression,” to the benefit of the […]
Copyright Office Releases Public Draft of Update to Compendium of U.S. Copyright Office Practices
The following is a guest post by Jalyce Mangum, attorney-advisor, Office of the General Counsel. Today, the Copyright Office releases a public draft of the latest update to the Compendium of U.S. Copyright Office Practices. As both a technical manual for the Office’s staff, as well as a guidebook for authors, copyright licensees, lawyers, scholars, […]
The Fourth Estate Decision and Copyright Registration
The following is a guest post by Regan A. Smith, General Counsel and Associate Register of Copyrights. Last week, the Supreme Court issued an important opinion regarding copyright registration. This blog discusses the decision, and some of the current (and future) options available for rights owners looking to register their copyright claims. What is the […]
Complete Copyright Card Catalog Images Online
The full set of Copyright Card Catalog images is now available online in our Virtual Card Catalog (VCC) Proof of Concept. A full year after our first release of the VCC in January 2018, the VCC has come a long way. We began last year by releasing nearly eighteen million card images from 1955 to 1977 to […]
Published Works Enter the Public Domain in the United States for First Time in Twenty Years
The following is a guest post by Anandashankar Mazumdar, outreach and education specialist in the Office of Public Information and Education. New Year’s Day 2019 was a landmark for American copyright law. For the first time in twenty years, published works of expression—including books, music, and films—started moving out of copyright protection and into the […]