[Federal Register Volume 79, Number 222 (Tuesday, November 18, 2014)]
[Rules and Regulations]
[Pages 68622-68623]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2014-27274]


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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

U.S. Copyright Office

37 CFR Part 201

[Docket No. 2014-08]


Fees for Submitting Corrected Electronic Title Appendices

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

ACTION: Final rule.

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SUMMARY: The U.S. Copyright Office recently adopted amended regulations 
to allow remitters to submit title lists in electronic format when 
recording documents that reference 100 or more titles. Those 
regulations also provide a process for correcting inaccuracies in the 
Office's online Public Catalog resulting from errors in electronic 
title lists. To avoid delay in implementing the electronic title list 
option, the Office decided to issue that final rule without imposition 
of a fee for corrections until such time as a fee could be set in 
accordance with this separate rulemaking. Today, the Office is amending 
its regulations to set that fee at a rate of seven dollars per 
corrected title.

DATES: Effective December 18, 2014.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Sarang V. Damle, Special Advisor to 
the General Counsel, by email at [email protected] or by telephone at 202-
707-8350; or Abi Oyewole, Attorney-Advisor, by email at [email protected] or 
by telephone at 202-707-8350.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: On September 17, 2014, under a rulemaking 
entitled ``Changes to Recordation Practices,'' the Copyright Office 
(``Office'') amended its regulations to, among other things, allow 
remitters to submit lists of titles in electronic format when recording 
documents that reference 100 or more titles of copyrighted works. See 
79 FR 55633. Those electronic lists are used by the Office for the 
purposes of indexing the online Public Catalog of recorded documents. 
In response to a comment received from the Recording Industry 
Association of America, Inc. (``RIAA''),\1\ the amended regulations 
also adopted a procedure for correcting errors in the online Public 
Catalog that have been caused by remitters' submission of inaccurate 
title lists. See 37 CFR 201.4(c)(4)(v). However, to avoid delay in 
implementing the electronic title list option, the Office decided to 
issue that final rule without imposition of a fee for corrections until 
a fee could be set in accordance with a separate Notice of Proposed 
Rulemaking (``NPRM'').
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    \1\ Recording Industry Ass'n of Am., Inc., Comments Submitted in 
Response to U.S. Copyright Office's July 16, 2014 Notice of Proposed 
Rulemaking (Aug. 15, 2014), available at http://copyright.gov/rulemaking/recordation-practices/docket2014-4/comments/RIAA.pdf.
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    That separate NPRM was published on September 17, 2014 and proposed 
a fee of seven dollars per corrected title. 79 FR 55694. The Office 
received only one substantive submission containing comments from 
RIAA.\2\ In its comments, RIAA expressed approval of the Office's 
decision to implement a correction process for electronic title lists. 
RIAA Comments at 1. It stated that it believed the number of errors 
found in an electronic title list would be small, and in such cases the 
$7 fee was ``reasonable.'' Id. But, it urged that in the ``presumably 
rare situations where a major clerical error requires a remitter to 
correct a large number of titles, a fee of $7 per title could serve as 
a disincentive for correcting the Office's records or as a penalty for 
having made a mistake in the first instance.'' Id. at 1-2. RIAA 
suggested that the Office ``track instances of large-scale corrections 
to electronic lists'' and consider a ``fee structure'' that would 
reduce the fee per corrected title once remitters exceed a set number 
of errors. Id. at 2.
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    \2\ Recording Industry Ass'n of Am. Inc., Comments Submitted in 
Response to U.S. Copyright Office's September 17, 2014 Notice of 
Proposed Rulemaking (Oct. 17, 2014) (``RIAA Comments''), available 
at http://copyright.gov/rulemaking/etitle-fees/comments/docket_2014%E2%80%9308/RIAA.pdf.
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    As the NPRM explained, the fee of seven dollars per corrected title 
was determined after considering the various personnel and system costs 
associated with providing the new service. 79 FR at 55695. What RIAA 
proposes, in essence, is that remitters who submit lists with a large 
number of errors be given a ``volume discount'' that is below the 
Office's costs.
    The Office declines to adopt this recommendation. To the extent the 
fee established here will have any effect on remitter behavior, the 
Office believes that it will principally serve as an incentive for 
submitting accurate electronic title lists in the first place, rather 
than as ``a disincentive for correcting the Office's records.'' RIAA 
Comments at 1-2. As the Office has stressed, remitters should 
``establish[ ] appropriate internal procedures to review and confirm 
electronic lists before they are submitted to the Office.'' 79 FR at 
55634. In any event, the statute itself provides an incentive for the 
submission of correct information as the benefits of recordation depend 
upon the

[[Page 68623]]

accurate identification and indexing of titles affected. See 17 U.S.C. 
205(c)-(d).

List of Subjects in 37 CFR Part 201

    Copyright.

Final Regulations

    For the reasons set forth in the preamble, the Copyright Office 
amends 37 CFR part 201 as follows:

PART 201--GENERAL PROVISIONS

0
1. The authority citation for part 201 continues to read as follows:

    Authority: 17 U.S.C. 702.


0
2. Amend Sec.  201.3 by revising paragraph (c)(16) to read as follows:


Sec.  201.3  Fees for registration, recordation, and related services, 
special services, and services performed by the Licensing Division.

* * * * *
    (c) * * *

------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Registration, recordation and related services         Fees  ($)
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                              * * * * * * *
(16) Recordation of document, including a notice of intention
 to enforce
    (single title)...........................................        105
    Additional titles (per group of 1 to 10 titles)..........         35
    Correction of online Public Catalog data due to erroneous          7
     electronic title submission (per title).................
 
                              * * * * * * *
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* * * * *

0
3. Amend Sec.  201.4 by revising the last sentence of paragraph 
(c)(4)(v) to read as follows:


Sec.  201.4  Recordation of transfers and certain other documents.

* * * * *
    (c) * * *
    (4) * * *
    (v) * * * Upon receipt of a corrected electronic list in proper 
form and the appropriate fee, the Office will proceed to correct the 
data in the online Public Catalog, and will make a note in the record 
indicating that the corrections were made and the date they were made.
* * * * *

    Dated: October 30, 2014.
Maria A. Pallante,
Register of Copyrights.

Approved by:

James H. Billington,
Librarian of Congress.
[FR Doc. 2014-27274 Filed 11-17-14; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 1410-30-P