[Federal Register Volume 78, Number 56 (Friday, March 22, 2013)]
[Notices]
[Pages 17722-17724]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2013-06633]


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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

U.S. Copyright Office

[Docket No. 2013-2]


Technological Upgrades to Registration and Recordation Functions

AGENCY: U.S. Copyright Office, Library of Congress.

ACTION: Notice of Inquiry.

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SUMMARY: The United States Copyright Office (hereinafter Copyright 
Office or Office) is in the process of identifying and evaluating 
potential improvements and technical enhancements to the information 
technology platforms that support its registration and recordation 
functions, including its online registration system. These efforts are 
part of the Office's ongoing special projects, commenced October 25, 
2011 (available at the Office's Web site at www.copyright.gov/docs/priorities.pdf). The information garnered through this process has and 
will continue to inform the development of the Copyright Office's long-
term strategic plan, scheduled to commence in October 2013.
    At this time, the Office seeks comments regarding existing 
capabilities and future possibilities. Broadly, the Office seeks 
comments on (1) how stakeholders use the current online offerings of 
the Copyright Office, especially with respect to registration and 
recorded documents, and how the current offerings meet, fail to meet, 
or exceed user expectations; and (2) how stakeholders would like to 
interact with the Copyright Office electronically in the future, or, 
put differently, what online services, or aspects of existing online 
services stakeholders would like to see. The Office appreciates the 
comments and suggestions of those who use the national registration and 
recordation systems to protect their intellectual property, as well as 
those who regularly use Copyright Office resources to identify 
copyright owners, investigate the copyright status of works and the 
public domain, and perform other research, including statistical 
analysis on aggregated data sets.

DATES: Comments on the Notice of Inquiry and Requests for Comments are 
due on or before May 21, 2013.
    Submission: All comments shall be submitted electronically. A 
comment page containing a comment form is posted on the Copyright 
Office Web site at http://www.copyright.gov/docs/technical_upgrades. 
The Web site interface requires submitters to complete a form 
specifying name and organization, as applicable, and to upload comments 
as an attachment via a browse button. To meet accessibility standards, 
all comments must be uploaded in a single file in either the Portable 
Document File (PDF) format that contains searchable, accessible text 
(not an image); Microsoft Word; WordPerfect; Rich Text Format (RTF); or 
ASCII text file format (not a scanned document). The maximum file size 
is 6 megabytes (MB). The name of the submitter and organization should 
appear on both the form and the face of the comments. All comments will 
be posted publicly on the Copyright Office web site exactly as they are 
received, along with names and organizations. If electronic submission 
of comments is not feasible, please contact the Copyright Office at 
202-707-8350 for special instructions.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Douglas Ament, Director of Information 
Technology, Copyright, by email at [email protected]; 
Christopher S. Reed, Senior Advisor for Policy & Special Projects, 
Office of the Register of Copyrights, by email at [email protected]; or 
call the U.S. Copyright Office by phone at 202-707-8350.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 

I. Background

    In 2000, the Copyright Office initiated a comprehensive business 
process reengineering initiative intended to update the Office's 
technology platform and improve operational efficiency. With the 
assistance of outside consultants and business analysts, the Office 
identified opportunities for efficiency enhancements and process 
improvements. The most significant recommendation was to convert the 
existing paper-based copyright registration system to an electronic 
system, which included the development of related new business 
processes and the automated production of public copyright records.
    Funding available for the reengineering effort was limited and 
decisions made by the Copyright Office and the greater Library were 
necessarily constrained. Ultimately the Office implemented a commercial 
off-the-shelf software package. The Office piloted the internal 
business process functions of the software with a subset of 
constituents in February 2005, followed by full implementation of the 
Copyright Office's electronic processing system in August 2007. The 
public-facing electronic registration system--the system that enables 
copyright registration applicants to submit materials online--was 
launched in July 2008. The Office implemented a significant upgrade to 
its software and hardware platforms in August 2010, and implemented 
periodic upgrades and enhancements to accommodate the needs of the 
system's stakeholders--namely those that submit materials for 
registration, those that search the Copyright Office database for 
copyright ownership information, and the Copyright Office's staff that 
process and examine copyright claims.
    Today, more than eighty percent of the Office's applications for 
copyright registration come through the electronic system, 
demonstrating the copyright community's widespread interest in 
electronic registration functions. Although the current system, and the 
periodic upgrades and enhancements, have allowed the Office to maintain 
a functional electronic platform for many types of works, there is room 
for substantial improvement. Notably, the Office's recordation services 
were included in the initial reengineering plan, but were later dropped 
for budgetary reasons. Recordation processes are, thus, still paper-
based and are a top concern of the Copyright Office. Thus, the Office's 
current systems represent the ``first generation'' of the Office's 
electronic processing capabilities.

II. Discussion

    In recent months, project leaders from the Copyright Office have 
engaged copyright owners, users of copyright records, technical 
experts, public interest organizations, and lawyers,

[[Page 17723]]

including through professional associations and small businesses to 
participate in a series of focused discussions on issues relating to 
the Office's platforms for registration, document recordation, and 
public access to copyright ownership information. Through these 
discussions, as well as through its own expert analysis, the Office has 
identified a number of areas in which the current electronic system 
could be improved. For example, numerous interested parties have 
observed that the current user interface for electronic registration is 
a challenge to navigate. Users have told the Office that it would be 
helpful to be able to customize the user interface and workflow in 
order to streamline the registration process to accommodate their own 
internal workflows. Moreover, users would like to exercise some degree 
of control over the nature and scope of information they view in a 
personalized registration system dashboard. The Copyright Office is 
aware of similar requests from its own staff, many of whom desire 
customizable workflows to enhance productivity and process efficiency, 
which would result in improved turnaround times for remitters.
    At a global level, the Office is aware that as mobile technology 
becomes ubiquitous, an increasing number of stakeholders desire to use 
mobile devices to interact with the Office. To that end, the Office is 
evaluating the potential to deploy a mobile optimized web interface, 
``apps'' that support popular mobile platforms, and the development of 
an application program interface (API) that can be utilized within 
third party applications.
    The Office has also heard that many of its users would benefit from 
improved tracking capabilities. Remitters have indicated that the 
existing electronic registration process is cumbersome and are 
oftentimes uncertain of their progress within the application process; 
to improve that aspect of the system, they have suggested that the 
Office implement a visual representation of the registration workflow 
and the user's status within it (e.g., a status bar).
    Beyond improvements to the registration functions, the Office is 
aware of opportunities for improvement to its public record search 
capabilities. Stakeholders have indicated that the Office's search 
function should be more robust, allowing for more search criteria, 
refining the display of the search results, adding filters, and 
generally making the search functionality more user-friendly. 
Representatives from interested parties also suggested the Copyright 
Office make it easier to provide updates to the public record to ensure 
the data maintained is accurate and up to date (e.g., address changes). 
The Office is thus investigating methods of secure and effective data 
sharing between interested parties and the Copyright Office in order to 
determine if such functionality can be implemented in a manner that 
ensures integrity of the Office's records.
    The Office is also aware of the need for long-term, scalable data 
storage and archiving capability to accommodate the growing volume of 
digital works that the Office receives. The Office has received 
recommendations to centralize the various information clusters 
internally within the Copyright Office to a central data repository and 
establish a central data warehouse. Implementing such a warehouse 
presents a series of challenges that the Office seeks to learn more 
about, including determining scalable infrastructure solutions to 
accommodate vast amounts of data, analyzing data standards needed to 
establish a central data model, and evaluating potential data archival 
strategies.
    One recommendation that the Office frequently hears, and one that 
underlies many of the areas of improvement noted above, is the need for 
bulk data transfer between the Office and interested outside parties. 
Such transfer mechanisms would allow more widespread distribution of 
the Office's records, as well as permit remitters to submit large 
quantities of electronic material and associated application data to 
the Office. Such ``system-to-system'' or ``business-to-business'' 
capabilities are a central area of inquiry for the Office. Interested 
parties have suggested that the Office expose data portals enabled to 
facilitate data exchange over standards-based protocols such as ebMS, 
SOAP, and AS4.
    In support of potential bulk data transfer capabilities, the Office 
is investigating specific data exchange standards, including those that 
already exist as well as the potential for developing a new standard 
based upon the needs of the Office's constituents. Interested parties 
have told the Office that it should continue to take an active role and 
adopt existing standards that support data exchange between the Office 
and its stakeholders. This includes defining or adopting metadata 
standards that support particular industries (e.g., IPTC for 
photography; ISRC for sound recordings; ONIX for books). Further, 
standards such as CISAC's Common Works Registration (CWR) and DDEX 
digital supply chain standards should be considered to help develop the 
Office's ability to provide better business-to-business data transfers. 
Interested parties have suggested that the Copyright Office publish a 
recognized list of data standards so that users are able to establish 
systems that support more efficient interactions with the Copyright 
Office.

III. Subjects of Inquiry

    The Copyright Office is currently evaluating what the ``next 
generation'' of its electronic services should look like. Through a 
comprehensive evaluation of its current technical processing 
capabilities, and extensive interaction with stakeholders, the Office 
hopes to develop a complete picture of how the Office currently 
supports the needs of the copyright community, and where its systems 
and services could be improved. The Office hopes to achieve a greater 
understanding of current technical challenges facing the copyright 
community as well as gain a comprehensive understanding of how the 
community hopes to conduct business with the Copyright Office in the 
future. This evaluation process, which is tied to special projects 
detailed in Priorities and Special Projects of the U.S. Copyright 
Office released by the Register of Copyrights in October 2011, is 
intended to inform the development of the Office's next five-year 
strategic plan that will commence in October 2013 and guide, among 
other things, the technological evolution of the Copyright Office. That 
plan will, in turn, inform the Library of Congress's overarching 
strategic plan.
    Because the Office's evaluation of its technology platform is 
intended to be a wide-ranging review of existing capabilities and 
future possibilities, the Office seeks comments that present conceptual 
frameworks with concrete examples of future potential applications or 
services. Broadly, the Office seeks comments on (1) how stakeholders 
use the current online offerings of the Copyright Office, especially 
with respect to registration and recorded documents, and how the 
current offerings meet, fail to meet, or exceed user expectations; and 
(2) how stakeholders would like to interact with the Copyright Office 
electronically in the future, or, put differently, what online 
services, or aspects of existing online services stakeholders would 
like to see.
    Although the Office welcomes comments on the wide range of topics 
germane to this inquiry, it is particularly interested in comments that 
address: (1) The nature and capabilities of the Copyright Office's 
public portals (e.g.,

[[Page 17724]]

for electronic registration services), including interface-based 
portals as well as business-to-business portals, or access to Copyright 
Office services or data through application program interfaces; (2) the 
nature and scope of information captured during the course of the 
registration and recordation processes, including that which could be 
captured through user input, or through metadata harvesting; (3) 
metadata standards in particular industries that the Copyright Office 
might adopt or incorporate into its systems (e.g., IPTC for 
photography; ISRC for sound recordings; ONIX for books); (4) data 
storage and security standards for electronic copyright deposits, 
including the development of policies and best practices for data 
retention and migration; (5) new ways of searching and accessing 
registration and recordation data and/or registration deposit metadata 
(e.g., image or music search technology); and (6) the integration of 
third-party databases of copyright ownership and licensing information 
(such as those maintained by collective management organizations) and 
related technologies with data maintained by the Copyright Office.

    Dated: March 18, 2013.
Maria A. Pallante,
Register of Copyrights, U.S. Copyright Office.
[FR Doc. 2013-06633 Filed 3-21-13; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 1410-30-P