Re: U.S. copyright registration process

On Wed, Aug 30, 2000 at 10:10:08AM -0700, Cumbow, Robert wrote:
> Just having a searchable database of active copyrights and their owners is
> reason enough to preserve the registration system, in my view (though I wish
> the LoC's copyright database were even half as user-friendly as the PTO's
> trademark database). The trouble is, the database is only as good as its
> ability to approach completeness and reliability. Since the US adopted
> Berne, I am sure that the vast majority of copyright owners do not register
> ... and sections 411 and 412 simply don't offer enough incentive to do so.

When renewals were part of the law it was easier to track down copyright owners. The LoC copyright database is for only 1978+ works: telnet to locis.loc.gov.

The public-domain list of renewals online (formerly at CMU, now at http://digital.library.upenn.edu/books/cce ) is of course not authoritative, and not a database, but the images and index have recently been improved.

Authors who wish others to find them and pay them money for reprints, derivative rights, American Airline commercials, and so forth, ought to be interested in some low-cost use of computers and the Internet this way. Otherwise they only encourage "piracy" and intervention by expensive lawyers in the free market. It seems a shame that legislators could write laws and then prevent good citizens from learning whether or not they are in violation of them.

But I think publishers argued that they were too poor and should not have to pay the Registrar of Copyrights for the privilege of being listed, and Congress agreed. The federal government bureaus are always living hand to mouth. It is the Authors who suffer. Received on Sat Sep 02 2000 - 02:44:18 GMT