    [Federal Register Volume 91, Number 58 (Thursday, March 26, 2026)]
    [Notices]
    [Pages 14724-14729]
    From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
    [FR Doc No: 2026-05886]

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    LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

    Copyright Office

    [Docket No. 2026-3]

    Alternative Fee Structures for Registration

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

    ACTION: Notice of inquiry.

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    SUMMARY: The U.S. Copyright Office is initiating this inquiry to
    collect information regarding alternative fee structures that could be
    adopted once its updated electronic registration system is fully
    operational. The information will be used to study the feasibility of
    alternative fee structures, their impact on participation in the
    registration system, and the potential economic effects. This inquiry
    is separate from the Office's pending rulemaking proceeding instituted
    on March 20, 2026 to update fees within the current fee structure.

    DATES: Written comments must be received no later than 11:59 p.m.
    Eastern Time on June 24, 2026.

    ADDRESSES:
        Submission of written comments: For reasons of governmental
    efficiency, the Copyright Office is using the regulations.gov system
    for the submission and posting of public comments in this proceeding.
    All comments are therefore to be submitted electronically through
    regulations.gov. Specific instructions for submitting comments are
    available on the Office's website at https://www.copyright.gov/policy/altfeestudy. If electronic comment submission is not feasible due to
    lack of access to a computer or the internet, please contact the Office
    using the contact information below for special instructions.
        Submission of business confidential information: Any submissions
    containing business confidential information must be marked
    ``confidential treatment requested'' and submitted through
    regulations.gov. Submitters should provide an index listing the
    document(s) or information they would like the Office to withhold. The
    index should identify the confidential document(s) by document
    number(s) and document title(s) and should identify the confidential
    information by description(s) and relevant page number(s) and/or
    section number(s) within a document. Submitters should provide a
    statement explaining their grounds for requesting nondisclosure of the
    information to the public as well. The Office also requests that
    submitters of business confidential information include a non-
    confidential version (either redacted or summarized) that will be
    posted on regulations.gov and available for public viewing. In the
    event that the submitter cannot provide a non-confidential version of
    their submission, the Office requests that the submitter post a notice
    on the docket stating that they have provided us with business
    confidential information. Should a submitter fail either to docket a
    non-confidential version of their submission or to post a notice that
    they have provided business confidential information, the Office will
    note the receipt of the submission on the docket with the submitter's
    organization or name (to the degree permitted by law) and the date of
    submission.

    FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Rhea Efthimiadis, Assistant to the
    General Counsel, by email at meft@copyright.gov or telephone at 202-
    707-8350.

    SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The Copyright Office is in the midst of a
    comprehensive project to update its technological infrastructure. This
    project, the Enterprise Copyright System (``ECS''), is expanding access
    to the Office's services in furtherance of its strategic objective of
    ``Copyright for All.'' \1\ A major component of ECS is a new
    registration system (``ECS Registration''), which will make the
    statutory benefits of registering works of authorship more accessible.
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        \1\ See U.S. Copyright Office, Strategic Plan 2022-2026
    Fostering Creativity and Enriching Culture 4 (2022) (``Strategic
    Plan 2022''), https://www.copyright.gov/reports/strategic-plan/USCO-strategic2022-2026.pdf.
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        Currently, most copyright owners use the Standard Application,
    which allows registration of a single work for a set fee. The Office
    has also introduced an increasing number of group registration options
    that allow multiple works to be registered with one application and one
    filing fee, effectively reducing the per-work fee for certain types of
    works.\2\ While many copyright owners have taken advantage of these
    options, some have also urged the adoption of alternative fee
    structures to further minimize or eliminate perceived barriers to
    registration.
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        \2\ See, e.g., Group Registration of a Two-Dimensional Artwork,
    90 FR 59383, 59387 (Dec. 19, 2025) (noting that group registration
    of 2D artwork will ``effectively reduce[ ] the per-work cost of
    registration by half''); see also 37 CFR 202.3(b)(5), 202.4(c)-(k),
    (m), (o) (group registration options for unpublished works, news
    websites, newspapers, newsletters and serials, unpublished and
    published photographs, contributions to periodicals, secure test
    items, works on an album of music, short online literary works, and
    database updates).
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        Over the past few years, the Office has acknowledged these
    proposals and expressed the intent to consider them once the necessary
    technological capabilities are in place.\3\ At this stage in the
    development of ECS Registration, the Office seeks to evaluate the
    feasibility of adopting any of the proposed fee mechanisms. This
    entails an analysis of their potential economic impact on the revenue
    that the Office receives from registration fees and the costs of
    administering the registration system. As we have affirmed in the
    context of the pending fee study,\4\ our goal is to enhance access to
    the copyright registration system, growing a robust record of copyright
    ownership. To that end, this notice of inquiry solicits information
    about copyright owners' current registration practices and how
    alternative fee structures might affect those practices. The Office
    will use the information provided to study the potential economic
    impact of alternative fee structures, which in turn will inform plans
    for further development of ECS Registration and funding strategies to
    be considered in future fee studies.
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        \3\ See Group Registration of Photographs, 83 FR 2542, 2545
    (Jan. 18, 2018) (explaining that in response to proposals for ``a
    tiered filing fee'' or ``a sliding-scale subscription model'' that
    ``the current registration system is not capable of supporting
    th[ese] type[s] of [ ] fee structure[s]'').
        \4\ See Copyright Office Fees, 91 FR 13529, 13532 (Mar. 20,
    2026).
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    I. Background

    A. The Office's Fee-Setting Authority

        The Copyright Act requires the Office to collect fees to cover the
    costs of certain services, including registration of copyright claims.
    The Register may ``adjust fees'' by regulation ``to not more than that
    necessary to cover the

    [[Page 14725]]

    reasonable costs incurred by the Copyright Office for [its] services.''
    \5\ The process for modifying fees entails studying the costs that the
    Office incurs in providing services and submitting a proposed fee
    schedule, along with an economic analysis, to Congress.\6\ As part of
    this process, the Office recently published a notice of proposed
    rulemaking seeking public comment on proposed adjustments to its fee
    schedule for certain fee-based services.\7\
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        \5\ 17 U.S.C. 708(b)(2).
        \6\ Id. at 708(b)(5).
        \7\ 91 FR 13529.
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        Section 708 of the Act requires that registration fees ``be fair
    and equitable and give due consideration to the objectives of the
    copyright system.'' \8\ One such objective is to ``encourage the
    production of original literary, artistic, and musical expression for
    the good of the public.'' \9\ The Office also seeks to encourage the
    public's use of our services. One way that the Office promotes these
    objectives is by charging higher fees for some services--albeit less
    than the actual costs incurred--in order to offer lower fees for other
    services to promote participation in the copyright system.\10\ While
    the Register has broad discretion to set fees,\11\ she cannot waive
    them except in limited circumstances.\12\
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        \8\ 17 U.S.C. 708(b)(4).
        \9\ Fogerty v. Fantasy, Inc., 510 U.S. 517, 524 (1994); see also
    Strategic Plan 2022 at 4 (``The Office's core services of
    registration, recordation, and statutory licensing play an important
    role in expanding culture and knowledge, supporting the ability to
    protect and exploit creative works while facilitating their
    dissemination through licensing and other lawful uses, here and
    abroad.'').
        \10\ See H.R. Rep. No. 105-25, at 8 (1997).
        \11\ See Public Law 105-80, 111 Stat. 1529, 1532 (1997); H.R.
    Rep. No. 105-25, at 16.
        \12\ See 17 U.S.C. 708(c) (permitting fee waiver for federal
    agencies and employees ``in occasional or isolated cases involving
    relatively small amounts''); id. at 708(e) (establishing fee waiver
    mechanism for winners of high school art competition sponsored by
    the Congressional Institute).
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        In sum, the Act requires that any proposed fee changes balance
    reasonable cost recovery against the effect on the use of the
    registration system. Economic analysis is therefore critical in setting
    fee schedules, including any potential changes to accommodate
    alternative fee structures.

    B. Past Consideration of Alternative Fee Structures

        While the Office has not previously conducted a comprehensive
    analysis of alternative fee structures, we have received comments on
    such structures in prior proceedings. In 2018, the Office published a
    notice of inquiry seeking input on registration topics, including
    whether we should implement a ``dynamic pricing model'' or offer a
    subscription service.\13\ In response, some commenters suggested that
    the Office consider an annual subscription option for high-volume
    creators to register works in bulk.\14\ Some supported tiered
    registration fee structures based on the number of works.\15\ Another
    proposal was to introduce tiered registration fees that would
    distinguish between individual authors, small businesses, and large
    corporate rightsholders.\16\ Commenters repeated these proposals in
    2022 in comments for the Office's deferred examination study,\17\ in
    which we considered the potential effect of a deferred examination
    option that would permit partial registration applications at a
    significantly discounted fee.\18\
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        \13\ See Registration Modernization, 83 FR 52336, 52339 (Oct.
    17, 2018).
        \14\ Coalition of Visual Artists, Comments Submitted in Response
    to U.S. Copyright Office's Oct. 17, 2018, Registration Modernization
    Notice of Inquiry (``2018 Registration Modernization NOI'') at 23
    (Jan. 15, 2019); ImageRights 2018 Registration Modernization NOI
    Comments at 4 (Jan. 15, 2019); Shaftel & Schmelzer 2018 Registration
    Modernization NOI Comments at 8-9 (Jan. 11, 2019).
        \15\ See Coalition of Visual Artists 2018 Registration
    Modernization NOI Comments at 23 (Jan. 15, 2019) (proposing
    ``[t]iered pricing [that] could be set at different levels (e.g. 1-
    50. 51-500, 501-1,000, 1,000+, etc.)'' as ``lower fees for creators
    registering fewer works would help many creators keep their
    registration cost-per-work more reasonable and encourage more
    registrations''); see also Coalition of Visual Artists, Comments
    Submitted in Response to U.S. Copyright Office's Dec. 1, 2016, Group
    Registration of Photographs Notice of Proposed Rulemaking at 59
    (Jan. 30, 2017) (``The Copyright Office could create tiered
    registration fees for specific quantities of images included in a
    group registration.'').
        \16\ See Shaftel & Schmelzer 2018 Registration Modernization NOI
    Comments at 9-12 (Jan. 11, 2019). The Office previously studied
    price differentiation between single authors and larger copyright
    owners, and implemented a registration option that offered lowered
    fees for an individual author-claimant registering a single work.
    See Single Application Option, 78 FR 38843 (June 28, 2013); U.S.
    Copyright Office, Proposed Schedule and Analysis of Copyright Fees
    to Go into Effect on or About April 1, 2014 1, 7-8 (Nov. 14, 2013);
    U.S. Copyright Office, Analysis and Proposed Fee Schedule to Go into
    Effect July 1, 1999 iv (Feb. 1, 1999). Because few copyright owners
    have used this option, the Office is proposing to eliminate it as
    part of the proposed fee schedule. See 91 FR 13529, 13533-34.
        \17\ Three comments expressed support for subscription pricing.
    See Coalition of Visual Artists, Comments in Response to U.S.
    Copyright Office's Dec. 10, 2021, Deferred Registration Examination
    Study Notice of Inquiry (``Deferred Registration Examination NOI'')
    Comments at 21-22 (Jan 24, 2022); Shaftel & Schmelzer Deferred
    Registration Examination NOI Comments at 21-22 (Jan. 22, 2022);
    Copyright Alliance Deferred Registration Examination NOI Comments at
    3, 5-6, 32 (Jan. 24, 2022). Five comments supported tiered pricing
    that differentiates between individuals, small businesses, and large
    corporations. See Copyright Alliance Deferred Registration
    Examination NOI Comments at 3, 31; Shaftel & Schmelzer Deferred
    Registration Examination NOI Comments at 22-25; AIPLA Deferred
    Registration Examination NOI Comments at 6 (Jan. 24, 2022); Assoc.
    of Med. Illustrators Deferred Registration Examination NOI Comments
    at 6, 8 (Jan. 24, 2022); Coalition of Visual Artists Deferred
    Registration Examination NOI Comments at 20.
        \18\ See U.S. Copyright Office, Deferred Registration
    Examination Study 10, 18-21 (Aug. 1, 2022) (``Deferred Registration
    Examination Study''), https://www.copyright.gov/policy/deferred-examination/Letter-on-Deferred-Registration-Examination-2022.08.01.pdf.
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        The Office previously expressed the intent to study these proposals
    further.\19\ In order to do so, additional information is essential to
    perform the necessary economic analysis for sound, data-driven policy
    decisions.\20\ This inquiry therefore seeks empirical evidence about
    how different fee structures would influence applicants' registration
    practices and affect the Office's costs. Because any new fee structure
    would be implemented in ECS Registration once it is in production, we
    are initiating this process now to plan for development of whatever
    additional system functionality may be required.
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        \19\ See 91 FR 13529, 13535; Group Registration of Two-
    Dimensional Artwork, 89 FR 11789, 11791 (Feb. 15, 2024); Deferred
    Registration Examination Study at 22-23; Registration Modernization,
    85 FR 12704, 12706 (Mar. 3, 2020); Proposed Schedule and Analysis of
    Copyright Fees to Go into Effect in Spring 2020 34 (Oct. 16, 2019)
    (stating that the Office will ``examine alternative vehicles for
    variable fee setting, including through further solicitations for
    public comment'').
        \20\ 17 U.S.C. 708(b)(5) (requiring the Register to submit an
    ``economic analysis'' of proposed fee adjustments to Congress prior
    to implementation).
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    II. Alternative Fee Structures

        As the Office explores alternative fee structures, our statutory
    lodestars are that fees be ``fair and equitable'' and ``give due
    consideration to the objectives of the copyright system.'' \21\
    Economic analysis of these fee structures requires consideration of how
    they would impact Office operations, and how they would affect
    applicants' registration decisions. In addition, because fees do not
    cover the full cost of the Office's services, any net increase in
    filing volume would likely entail increasing fees, additional
    congressional appropriations, or both, to sustain Office
    operations.\22\ With these considerations in mind, this notice broadly
    outlines four types of alternative fee structures that have been
    proposed, along with some of the potential benefits and risks of each.
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        \21\ Id. at 708(b)(4).
        \22\ See 91 FR 13529, 13532; Copyright Office Fees, 85 FR 9374,
    9378-79 (Feb. 19, 2020).
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    A. Fees Differentiated by Type of Work

        The vast majority of applicants submit their claims using the
    Standard Application. The Office currently charges a uniform fee of $65
    for processing these claims, regardless of

    [[Page 14726]]

    the type of work involved.\23\ The resources required to examine each
    application, however, vary substantially across work types. For
    example, processing an application to register a motion picture on
    average costs $83, whereas processing an application to register a
    literary work on average costs $147.\24\ As a result, some applicants
    end up paying fees that are disproportionate to the costs borne by the
    Office. This misalignment effectively creates subsidies and can, over
    time, distort applicant behavior.\25\
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        \23\ 37 CFR 201.3(c)(1)(i)(B).
        \24\ See Federal Research Division, U.S. Copyright Office FY2024
    Fee Study: Cost Assessment Report 19-20 (2025) (``FRD 2025 USCO Cost
    Report'') (Table 4), https://www.copyright.gov/rulemaking/feestudy2026/Cost%20Assessment%20Report.pdf. For more information
    about the Office's costs for providing services, see generally
    Copyright Office Fees, 91 FR 13529, 13533-40.
        \25\ See Yongmin Chen & Marius Schwartz, Differential Pricing
    When Costs Differ: A Welfare Analysis, 46 RAND J. Econ. 442, 443
    (2015) (explaining that uniform pricing across services with
    different marginal costs misallocates output by encouraging
    excessive consumption of subsidized services and insufficient
    consumption of higher-cost services). See also Gerald R. Faulhaber,
    Cross-Subsidization: Pricing in Public Enterprises, 65 Am. Econ.
    Rev. 966 (1975) (discussing how cross subsidies can arise from the
    structure of costs and pricing); Dennis W. Carlton & Jeffrey M.
    Perloff, Modern Industrial Organization 712 (4th ed. 2015)
    (discussing cross-subsidization arising from differentiated prices).
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        One possibility to address the differences in cost recovery would
    be to charge different fees for different types of works, based on the
    resources required to process claims. Under a differentiated fee model,
    applicants would pay fees more closely tied to the actual cost of
    examining their claims. This fee structure would reduce the existing
    cross-subsidies from applicants who submit inexpensive-to-process works
    to those submitting works that require the Office to expend more
    resources.\26\
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        \26\ When fees reflect true resource demands, users are more
    likely to make more efficient decisions about the costs and benefits
    of consuming the service, and the Office will be better able to
    allocate its limited examination resources in a way that more
    closely matches stakeholder value. See Chen & Schwartz, supra note
    25, at 443 (``Differential pricing obviously has the potential to
    increase total welfare when marginal costs differ: uniform pricing
    will misallocate output, so a small output reallocation to the low-
    cost market will raise total welfare.''). See also Faulhaber, supra
    note 25 (discussing how cross subsidies can arise from the structure
    of costs and pricing). See also Carlton & Perloff, supra note 25, at
    712 (discussing cross-subsidization arising from differentiated
    prices).
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        Because the Office already organizes examination operations into
    divisions corresponding to the major categories of works, and currently
    differentiates application forms and deposit requirements along similar
    lines, a differentiated fee system could align with the existing
    institutional structure.\27\ Still, some outlays would be necessary to
    update electronic systems, public guidance, and intake procedures.
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        \27\ Currently, the Office of Registration Policy & Practice is
    organized into three different divisions--Literary, Performing Arts,
    and Visual Arts--that examine applications for different types of
    works. See 37 CFR 203.3(e).
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        There are also circumstances where differential pricing based on
    the type of work could be inefficient and counterproductive. Because
    the Office's administrative classifications do not have legal
    significance,\28\ if fees differ across categories, applicants may
    intentionally or inadvertently misclassify works, thereby triggering
    examiner review, correspondence, and supplemental fee collection,
    resulting in a later effective date of registration based on when the
    correct fee is received. Further, misclassification increases
    processing time, imposes administrative costs, and may degrade the
    quality of the public record.
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        \28\ See 17 U.S.C. 408(c)(1).
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    B. Differential Fees for Individuals and Organizations

        A second approach to fee differentiation would be to vary fees
    depending on whether the author, claimant, and/or applicant is an
    individual or an organization.\29\ This structure is what is known to
    economists as third-degree price discrimination, in which a seller
    charges different prices to distinct groups that exhibit different
    levels of price sensitivity.\30\ It does not necessarily cost the
    Office more to process a registration application from an organization
    than it does to process an application from an individual, so charging
    organizations more than individuals would make the fees paid by
    organizations disproportionately high relative to the costs they impose
    on the Office, and fees paid by individuals disproportionately low.\31\
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        \29\ See U.S. Copyright Office, Compendium of U.S. Copyright
    Office Practices secs. 402, 404, 613.1 (3d ed. 2021).
        \30\ Price sensitivity refers to how consumer demand for a good
    or service is affected by price changes. Higher price sensitivity
    means that a consumer is more likely to forgo a good or service if
    the price increases or purchase more if the price decreases. In
    contrast, price insensitivity exists where demand remains the same
    regardless of any change in price. See Hal R. Varian, Intermediate
    Microeconomics: A Modern Approach ch. 24 (4th ed. 1992) (defining
    third-degree price discrimination as the practice of charging
    different prices to distinct consumer groups with different demand
    elasticities).
        \31\ In some circumstances, the Office already effectively
    subsidizes applications from certain types of authors. For example,
    the fees for group registration of photographs are set low because
    many applicants are individuals and/or small businesses. See 91 FR
    13529, 13534. These lower fees are partly subsidized by charging
    higher fees to register works in certain categories of services
    where the applicants or requesters are more likely to be corporate
    entities, including databases and news website updates, vessel
    hulls, special handling, and litigation statements. See id. at
    13534-35.
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        Two conditions for this sort of pricing structure to be effective
    are: (1) a substantial difference in demand elasticity between groups,
    and (2) an ability to efficiently distinguish between the groups.\32\
    With respect to the first condition, it is plausible that individuals
    and organizations exhibit markedly different demand elasticities for
    registration services.\33\ As for the second condition, from an
    administrative perspective, distinguishing between individuals and
    organizations may be relatively straightforward, since applicants are
    asked to indicate whether each author and claimant is an individual or
    organization.\34\ However, introducing differential fees would create
    incentives for organizations to misclassify themselves as individuals,
    which could result in additional costs to process applications with
    these errors.\35\ Ultimately, if these two economic conditions are met,
    this type of fee differentiation could make registration more
    affordable for individuals, and, in theory, increase the overall number
    of applications.
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        \32\ See Carlton & Perloff, supra note 25, at ch. 9 (explaining
    that third-degree price discrimination requires identifiable
    consumer groups with different demand elasticities and that firms
    must be able to separate those groups at low cost for price
    discrimination to be effective).
        \33\ When one group is much more responsive to price than
    another, there may be efficiency and revenue advantages to charging
    the more elastic group a lower fee and the less elastic group a
    higher one. See Michael A. Crew & Paul R. Kleindorfer, The Economics
    of Public Utility Regulation ch. 6 (MIT Press 1986) (discussing
    Ramsey pricing and explaining that efficiency and revenue objectives
    are advanced when prices deviate from marginal cost inversely to
    demand elasticity, with lower prices charged to more elastic
    customer groups and higher prices to less elastic groups).
        \34\ See generally U.S. Copyright Office, Copyright Registration
    Toolkit (Jan. 2026), https://www.copyright.gov/intellectual-property-toolkits/copyright-registration-toolkit.pdf; Standard
    Application Registration Tutorial, U.S. Copyright Office, https://copyright.gov/eco/standard.mp4. The Office intends to continue the
    practice of asking applicants to specify whether authors and
    claimants are individuals or organizations in ECS Registration.
        \35\ Preventing misclassification may require the Office to
    adopt verification measures, causing additional costs. See Jean-
    Jacques Laffont & Jean Tirole, A Theory of Incentives in Procurement
    and Regulation chs. 1-2 (MIT Press 1993) (explaining that when
    regulated parties have incentives to misrepresent their type,
    differentiated pricing or regulatory schemes require verification
    and enforcement mechanisms whose administrative and informational
    costs can offset or exceed the efficiency gains from
    differentiation).

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    C. Reduced Fees for Small Entities

        Another approach could be for the Office to offer lower or
    discounted fees for smaller entities--small businesses and non-profit
    organizations that fall below a certain employee headcount or revenue
    level. This approach would provide benefits similar to our cost-
    effective group registration options, which we implemented to make
    registration more accessible to individual creators and small
    businesses.\36\
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        \36\ See 91 FR 13529, 13534; 90 FR 59383, 59387 (Dec. 19, 2025)
    (noting that the Office tailored the proposed group registration
    option ``to address the challenges facing individual artists and
    small businesses in registering two-dimensional artwork one work at
    a time, in light of concerns that these claimants often lack the
    time and resources required to register works individually'').
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        The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (``USPTO''), following
    congressional legislation, has offered small entity fee discounts for
    patent applicants for several years. Under the America Invents Act, the
    USPTO is statutorily required to discount various patent application
    fees for small and micro entities, by 60 to 80 percent,
    respectively.\37\ To deter misuse of these options, the USPTO requires
    that small and micro-entity patent applicants certify that they meet
    income and filing-history thresholds; and civil penalties, and, in some
    cases, criminal liability, are available to deter
    misrepresentations.\38\
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        \37\ See Unleashing American Innovators Act of 2022, Public Law
    117-328, sec. 107, 136 Stat. 4459, 5521-22 (2022).
        \38\ See id.; Leahy-Smith America Invents Act, Public Law 112-
    29, sec. 10(b), 125 Stat. 284 (2011), amended by the SUCCESS Act,
    Public Law 115-273, 132 Stat. 4158 (2018); 37 CFR 1.27, 1.29. A
    ``small entity'' is defined as a person, small business concern
    (i.e., 500 or fewer employees), or nonprofit organization (e.g.,
    university, 501(c)(3) organization, state nonprofit scientific and
    educational organizations, foreign nonprofit that, if located in the
    U.S., would qualify as a nonprofit under federal or state law). 37
    CFR 1.27(a); 13 CFR 121.802. A ``micro entity'' is an application
    that qualifies as a ``small entity'' under USPTO rules, has not been
    named as an inventor on more than four previously filed patent
    applications, did not earn more than three times the median
    household income and did not convey an interest to an entity that
    exceeded the triple median gross income limit. 35 U.S.C. 123.
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        Discounting copyright registration fees for smaller entities would
    operate on similar economic logic as differentiating between
    individuals and organizations. The presumption is that smaller entities
    have less ability to pay fees and higher price sensitivity than larger
    organizations, making them more responsive to fee changes. Differential
    pricing could therefore improve access to registration for smaller
    enterprises while shifting a larger share of cost recovery onto larger,
    less price-sensitive entities.\39\
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        \39\ See Carlton & Perloff, supra note 25, at ch. 9 (explaining
    that under third-degree price discrimination, charging lower prices
    to more price-elastic groups and higher prices to less price-elastic
    groups can expand participation by the elastic group while allowing
    greater cost recovery from the inelastic group).
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        Because the Office does not collect data on entity size, it cannot
    confirm these presumed differences in demand elasticity. Moreover, the
    findings in one recent empirical study cast doubt on whether discounted
    fees for smaller entities meaningfully increase patent filings.\40\ If
    similar dynamics apply to copyright registration, fee discounts for
    smaller entities could reduce Office revenue without meaningfully
    increasing registration activity.
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        \40\ Ga[eacute]tan de Rassenfosse & Adam B. Jaffe, The Effect of
    Application Fees on Entry into Patenting (Nat'l Bureau of Econ.
    Rsch., Working Paper No. 33492, 2025), https://www.nber.org/papers/w33492 (finding that the USPTO's fee reductions for small and micro
    entities had no measurable effect on small-entity patenting
    activity).
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        But distinctions between the copyright and patent systems may lead
    to a different outcome if the Office were to discount fees for small
    entities. Most fundamentally, an application is necessary to secure
    patent rights; no protection exists until the patent is granted by the
    USPTO.\41\ In contrast, copyright subsists automatically upon fixation
    of a work of authorship.\42\ Although copyright owners have meaningful
    incentives to register,\43\ they need not do so to enjoy legal rights.
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        \41\ See 35 U.S.C. 100-105, 111, 131, 151, 154 (specifying that
    a patent, and the exclusive rights that it provides, can only be
    ``obtain[ed]'' by submitting an application that complies with the
    relevant statutory and regulatory provisions to the USPTO, which
    examines and issues the patent).
        \42\ See 17 U.S.C. 408(a) (``[R]egistration is not a condition
    of copyright protection.'').
        \43\ These incentives include that a registration determination
    by the Office is a precondition to instituting litigation in federal
    court and for seeking statutory damages and fees for infringement.
    See id. at 411(a); Fourth Estate Public Benefit Corp. v. Wall-Street.com, LLC, 586 U.S. 296, 309 (2019).
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        A related distinction is the cost of services: copyright
    registration fees are considerably lower than patent filing and
    maintenance fees.\44\ Further, filing fees often represent a relatively
    small share of total costs in developing and securing a patent for an
    invention, including the cost of paying an attorney to prosecute the
    patent, such that the amount of fees may not be a significant factor
    influencing smaller entities' application decisions.\45\ This may be a
    more significant factor for small entities that rely on copyright
    protection, like a freelance photographer's limited liability
    company.\46\ Moreover, copyright owners are often individuals who are
    not engaged in business activity, who may register simply to make a
    record of their claims and protect against infringement without
    intending to commercialize their works.
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        \44\ Compare 37 CFR 201.3 (copyright fee schedule, including a
    fee of $65 for a Standard Application filed online), with id. at
    1.16-1.21 (patent fee schedule, including a basic application filing
    fee of $350, search fee of $770, and examination fee of $880).
    Unlike fees for copyright registration that are paid only when the
    application is filed, patent owners must also periodically pay fees
    after a patent is granted to maintain protection for the entire
    term. See id. at 1.20(e)-(g) (fees for maintaining a patent due at
    3.5 years ($2150), 7.5 years ($4040), and 11.5 years ($8280)).
        \45\ Based on a survey of intellectual property firms and
    individual practitioners about professional service fees charged in
    FY2024, the AIPLA reported median fees of $8,000 for preparing a
    patent application of ``minimal complexity'' and median fees of up
    to $12,000 for a ``relatively complex'' application. See AIPLA,
    Report of the Economic Survey 22-25 (2025). In addition to the costs
    of preparing a patent application, inventors may incur costs for
    related professional services such as to amend or argue the patent
    application, appeal a denial, conduct a novelty search, provide a
    validity opinion, and issue an approved patent. See id.
        \46\ Even where an author engages a third-party service to
    assist with a copyright registration, however, those fees, including
    the fee charged by the Office, generally amount to less than $1000.
    See id. at 31 (reporting median professional fees of $525 to prepare
    and file an application for copyright registration). This cost,
    while not insignificant to an individual or small business, is
    relatively modest compared to the legal fees and costs of retaining
    an attorney to prosecute a patent, which on average start at $8000
    and can far exceed that. See id. at 22-25.
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        In addition to potentially affecting application volume, offering
    discounts for smaller entities may require the Office to incur
    additional operating costs. Like the proposal to differentiate fees
    based on the type of work, a system that conditions eligibility for
    lower fees based on income, size, or filing history could invite
    strategic behavior, entailing greater burdens in identifying and
    correcting miscategorized applications. Nevertheless, if reduced fees
    for small entities leads to increased use of the copyright registration
    system, that may justify some additional administrative costs.

    D. Subscription Pricing

        Subscription pricing is a model in which users pay a fixed periodic
    fee--usually monthly or annually--in exchange for access to a service
    during that period.\47\ Instead of charging users each time they apply
    to register a work, the Office could charge a fixed subscription fee
    that entitles them to file up to a certain number of applications
    within a prescribed period (subject to any volume constraints imposed
    by the

    [[Page 14728]]

    system). While adopting any of the proposed alternative fee structures
    would require modifications to the application fee calculator in ECS
    Registration, because the Office does not currently offer subscription
    pricing for any of its services, doing so would require more
    substantial development work.\48\
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        \47\ Liran Einav et al., Selling Subscriptions, 115 a.m. Econ.
    Rev. 1650, 1650-51 (2025) (``A growing number of retail products are
    now sold as subscriptions, which are typically billed on a monthly
    basis and automatically renewed unless a consumer actively
    cancels.'').
        \48\ See 89 FR 11789, 11797 (explaining that the Office ``will
    not be able to offer alternate fee structures for high volume
    creators,'' including subscription pricing, ``until after the ECS
    system is fully operational''); 83 FR 2542, 2545 (explaining that
    currently the Office does not have the ability to charge a flat fee
    that would allow applicants to submit a set number of applications
    or register a set number of works over a given time period).
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        A subscription model is common in certain commercial markets where
    the cost of providing one additional unit of the service is close to
    zero, for example, markets for software, digital media, or cloud
    services.\49\ In economics terms, subscription pricing converts what
    would otherwise be a per-use transaction into a flat-rate system in
    which the marginal price of the next use is effectively zero. Such a
    model is economically efficient under a specific set of conditions,
    including high fixed costs, high switching costs, low marginal costs,
    and a high variance of usage intensity across subscribers. If all these
    economic conditions are met, subscription pricing could benefit
    applicants and the Office, and ultimately the public, by reducing
    transaction costs, taking advantage of economies of scale, and
    smoothing revenue. Otherwise subscription pricing becomes inefficient
    and potentially costly.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

        \49\ Einav et al., supra note 47, at 1650-52 (explaining that
    subscription pricing is most attractive in markets with low marginal
    costs and where consumer behavior--such as inattention or switching
    costs--supports flat-rate pricing, and that absent these conditions
    firms must rely on substantially higher fixed fees or experience
    reduced revenue, making the subscription model inefficient or
    unsustainable).
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

        Such inefficiencies would be particularly acute for a public-sector
    agency like the Office. The marginal cost of examining a registration
    application is not close to zero; rather, the per-unit cost of
    examining standard applications ranges from $83.46 to $194.46.\50\ The
    Office does not experience economies of scale in the examination
    process--each claim requires examiner review, including time-consuming
    correspondence in some cases, as well as system resources. Neither
    would subscription pricing meaningfully reduce transaction costs.
    Applicants would still need to submit individual deposit copies and
    complete all required information for each registration application,
    which constitute most of the transaction costs for the user. The only
    obvious reduction would come from avoiding repeated payment entry--a
    benefit already achieved through deposit accounts in the current
    registration system.\51\
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        \50\ See FRD 2025 USCO Cost Report at 32.
        \51\ See 37 CFR 201.6(b). In the future, some of applicants'
    other transaction costs may be reduced if they submit claims, upload
    deposits, and pay subscription fees through an application
    programming interface (``API'')--an option that the Office is
    planning to develop in ECS Registration.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

        Further, a subscription system may introduce inequity among
    claimants by severing the link between usage and cost, encouraging
    high-volume applicants, including large organizations and third-party
    registration services, to file even more frequently while paying far
    less per claim. Meanwhile, low-volume users, including individual
    creators and small entities, would pay relatively more per claim. This
    would constitute a cross-subsidy from small or infrequent users to
    large or high-volume users.
        Finally, allowing applicants to file additional claims for no
    additional fee might lead to speculative, low-quality, or borderline
    claims, which would strain examination resources. An influx of low-
    quality claims could overwhelm Office capacity, lengthen processing
    times, and degrade the quality of the public record. To mitigate such
    harms, the subscription fee would likely need to be set high and the
    number of applications would need to be limited.\52\ While subscription
    pricing might be feasible under those conditions--where the fee is
    sufficiently high and volume is appropriately limited--they may
    eliminate the utility of a subscription for the applicants who would be
    inclined to use it.
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        \52\ See Crew & Kleindorfer, supra note 33, at ch. 7 (explaining
    that when services are priced at zero or near-zero marginal cost,
    excessive or low-value usage can strain system capacity and degrade
    service quality, requiring either higher fixed charges or quantity
    restrictions to preserve cost recovery and system performance).
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    III. Subjects of Inquiry

        This notice builds on previous public comments proposing various
    alternative registration fee structures by providing an opportunity to
    expand on those proposals and explain in greater detail how they could
    be structured and implemented. We also seek to elicit information--in
    particular, quantitative data about stakeholder registration practices
    and price sensitivity--that can be used for a robust economic
    analysis.\53\ The resulting analysis will be a predicate for developing
    the functionality that would be needed for any alternative fee
    structures in ECS Registration.
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        \53\ In order to be considered, data must meet professional
    standards of quality and transparency, and submitters should include
    a statement detailing what the data is and how it was collected. For
    guidelines, see for example, Office of Mgmt. & Budget, Guidelines
    for Ensuring and Maximizing the Quality, Objectivity, Utility, and
    Integrity of Information Disseminated by Federal Agencies, 67 FR
    8452, 8452-55 (Feb. 22, 2002) (establishing government-wide
    standards for data quality, including requirements that information
    used in agency analysis be accurate, reliable, unbiased, transparent
    as to sources and methods, and suitable for its intended analytical
    use, particularly where data are used to support economic and policy
    decisions).
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

        Accordingly, the Office is requesting public comment on the
    subjects of inquiry below. A party choosing to respond to this notice
    of inquiry need not address every subject, but we request that
    responding parties clearly identify and separately address each subject
    for which a response is submitted. The Office also requests that
    commenters explain their interest in the topic and, with respect to
    each answer, the basis for their knowledge.

    A. Alternative Fee Structure Details

        1. Please describe, in detail, mechanisms for how the Office could
    implement the four proposed alternative fee structures and explain how
    they would support the objectives of promoting equity among authors of
    different work types, sustaining Office operations, and encouraging
    registration to create a reliable public record of copyright ownership.
    In doing so, consider the following:
        (a) Where an alternative fee structure would be limited to certain
    types of claims or applicants, how should those categories be defined
    and why? Describe any proposed fee tiers based on the type of claim or
    applicant, including how fees should be set for each tier relative to
    other tiers, and explain why these tiers would be consistent with the
    statutory requirement that fees charged by the Office be ``fair and
    equitable.''
        (b) If the Office were to charge different fees for individuals and
    for organizations, should the fee be based on the person who created
    the work (the author), the person who owns the copyright in the work
    (the claimant), and/or the person who is submitting the claim (the
    applicant)?
        (i) Should fees vary depending on whether the work was created by
    an individual author (i.e., not a work made for hire) or corporate
    authors (i.e., works made for hire)?
        (ii) Should fees vary depending on whether the copyright in the
    work is owned by an individual claimant or a corporate claimant (which
    may have

    [[Page 14729]]

    obtained the copyright from an individual author)?
        (iii) Should fees vary depending on whether the claim is being
    submitted by an individual (e.g., an individual author/claimant
    submitting the claim on their own behalf) or a corporate entity (e.g.,
    a person submitting a claim on behalf of their corporate employer, a
    person who works for a law firm, or a person who works for a copyright
    registration service)?
        (c) If the Office were to discount fees for smaller entities, how
    should entity size be determined--based on annual revenue, employee
    headcount, non-profit status, and/or another metric?
        (d) Under a subscription model, what would be reasonable limits on
    the number of works that an applicant could register and/or the number
    of applications they could file within a particular time period? Should
    there be different limits for different work types and, if so, how
    should the Office set these limits? How should fees be set given that
    the Office incurs similar costs when examining each individual work?
        (e) What should be the consequence(s) for applicant filing errors
    (e.g., misclassifying a work, misrepresenting the applicant as an
    individual or small entity)? In order to help recoup costs and deter
    this behavior, should the Office refuse registration and require the
    applicant to refile with a later effective date, charge additional
    administrative processing fees (in addition to the fee difference), or
    some other option?
        (f) Please identify any current legal or regulatory constraints on
    adopting alternative fee structures and explain what changes to
    statutory or regulatory language would remove these impediments.
        2. Other than the four alternative fee structures identified in
    this notice, are there any others that the Office should consider
    (e.g., tiered fees based on the number of works being registered)? If
    so, please describe them in detail while considering the above
    questions.

    B. Business and Registration Practices

        3. Please describe your or your organization's current practices
    with respect to registration, providing information about filing volume
    and costs incurred (e.g., application fees, personnel costs, third-
    party service and legal fees) for different types of works where
    available. In addition, please specify whether you are an individual or
    organization; and if an organization, please provide the entity's
    approximate staff headcount and annual revenue.
        4. Please describe the extent to which any alternative fee
    structure, if implemented by the Office, is likely to affect your
    practices with respect to registration, including any quantitative
    projections about the effect on filing volume and registration-related
    expenses.
        5. Are you aware of any potential applicants that are not fully
    participating in the current registration system and would be
    incentivized to register works if the Office implemented one or more
    alternative fee structures? If so, describe the potential applicant(s),
    identify the fee structure(s), and explain the projected change(s) in
    registration activity, providing quantitative data where available.
        6. Would implementing any of the alternative fee structures deter
    any potential applicants from seeking registration or otherwise lead
    them to modify their registration practices? If so, describe the
    potential applicant(s), identify the fee structure(s), and explain the
    projected change(s) in registration activity, providing quantitative
    data and analysis where available.

    C. Processing Costs and Feasibility

        7. The Office has traditionally recovered approximately 50 to 60%
    of our costs through fees; and the remainder is provided through
    appropriations from Congress. If alternative fee structures were to
    increase costs for providing registration services--for example, by
    increasing registration volume and requiring more examiners--how should
    the Office recover these additional costs? If the Office were to
    increase fees to make up for any budgetary shortfall, please identify
    which service fees should be increased and explain why those increases
    would be ``fair and equitable.''
        8. The adoption of any alternative fee structure is subject to
    technical feasibility within ECS Registration, currently in
    development, and would require developing additional system
    capabilities. To assess usage and costs before expanding access to more
    applicants, should the Office adopt any alternative fee structures on a
    limited or temporary basis? Should these fee structures be limited to
    certain types of works or applications? Please identify any appropriate
    limitations and explain why certain applications should be given higher
    priority.
        9. Are there other process changes that could be implemented
    through development of ECS Registration--i.e., in-process technological
    upgrades to make application processing easier for internal and
    external users--that would incentivize registration and improve cost
    recovery? Would the Office's planned development of API functionality,
    once implemented, diminish the need for any of the proposed alternative
    fee structures?
        10. The Office periodically evaluates, including in our fee
    studies, how often various registration options are used by applicants
    and the costs associated with providing each of them. If we were to
    adopt any alternative fee structures, would that obviate the need for
    any existing application options, such as current group registration
    applications? Conversely, would more or expanded group registration
    options obviate the need for any of the alternative fee structures?
    Should the Office ``sunset'' or discontinue any group registration
    options or alternative fee structures if they are infrequently used or
    duplicative of other options?

        Dated: March 24, 2026.
    Emily L. Chapuis,
    General Counsel and Associate Register of Copyrights.
    [FR Doc. 2026-05886 Filed 3-25-26; 8:45 am]
    BILLING CODE 1410-30-P