Copyright Office Discovers Online Submissions

Arstechnica:

Given the fact that copyright has become an unlikely new rallying point for the digital culture wars, you might think that the Copyright Office itself would be the sort of place that’s been accepting online submissions for years. You’d be wrong.

The Copyright Office uses the web solely to offer its federal forms, which users can then download, print out, fill out in ballpoint pen, and mail to the government with a hardcopy of the work to be registered and something known as a “check” for payment.

But no more. This week the Copyright Office finally embraces the single most obvious application of the Web: freeing people from filling out paper forms.

550,000 registrations a year pass through the Copyright Office, so it’s in both the government’s and the taxpayers’ interest to make the system efficient enough to process those applications in a timely manner.

The benefits include ten dollars off the normal filing fee ($35 instead of $45), faster processing time, credit card payments, and online status tracking. Certain works (mostly unpublished and electronic-only pieces) can even be uploaded directly to the Copyright Office.

Photo by copyright.gov.

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