Errors in USCO database

On 10/27/96, Dan Agin, Spectrum Press <specpress[_at_]earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> I would like to bring to the attention of this list the problem of
> the possibility of errors in the U.S. Copyright Office computerized
> database of copyright registrations.
>
> A few weeks ago, while searching the database, I stumbled on an entry
> involving a book I had written and published (under a pseudonym) in
> 1992. The entry was not for the original copyright TX registration, but
> for a set of six audio cassettes made with that book title and my
> name as author, the entry giving the audio publisher and an SR (sound
> recording) registration number. I immediately contacted the print
> publisher of my book, castigating them because I had never been told
> they had sold audio rights, etc., etc. They said they had no idea
> what I was talking about and said they would investigate. Since then,
> after thinking about the matter, I have decided the idea that anyone
> would make a sound recording on six cassettes of that particular book
> is ridiculous, as ridiculous as making a musical of Feist v. Rural.
> (Although if someone did produce a musical based on Feist v. Rural, I
> would certainly buy a front row seat.)
>
> So my present view is that the computerized CO database is in error
> on this entry, the error originating either in the database itself or
> in the software that searches the database. (The error is replicable
> and definitely in the CO data or software). The entry that came up
> looked perfectly fine: Book title, my name as author, and then the
> usual record information -- except in this case the record
> information is probably from another record. If errors such as this
> truly exist in the CO database (or bugs in the search engine), they
> will probably go unrecognized by everyone except the author and
> publisher. So any third party searching the database for any purpose,
> including litigation, may be confronted with an erroneous record and
> not know it. Since authors and publishers (the people who would
> recognize the errors) only rarely search the database, existing
> errors will not easily be located and corrected. I think the existing
> errors are a lost cause -- there is really no reasonable way for
> third parties to locate them systematically. But as far as future
> entries are concerned, I suggest the copyright community urge the CO
> to consider the introduction of a software error code for each
> record, so that if any record does become corrupted it will at least
> be flagged when it is brought up. There are many possible alogrithms
> for error codes, and I suggest one ought to be used to protect future
> entries in the database.

Did you contact the Copyright Office at all?

Not to say that they might *not* have a problem, but I wouldn't automatically assume the error was theirs without checking further. I'm thinking that you could ask for a copy of the SR certificate and see if there was an actual registration. That would determine 1) if the error if in their database or, 2) however unlikely, that someone could have made a sound recording without your publisher's permission/ knowledge. Of course, the caveat GIGO (Garbage In, Garbage Out) also applies to a third possibility: perhaps the person filling out the copyright registration forms at the publisher mixed information from two applications. The Copyright Office would just replicate whatever information they were given, not knowing it was erroneous.

However, I would definitely like to hear the outcome of this as we are looking at possibly using the new CORDS systems for registering our electronic journals.

Paul K. Dzus
Subsidiary Rights Manager
The MIT Press Journals
55 Hayward Street, E39-350
Cambridge, MA 02142-1399 USA

Telephone	(617) 253-2864
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