The copyright office is finally going electronic this summer - a move that copyright practitioners have waited on for years. Starting this July, basic electronic registration filings will put you back a mere thirty-five dollars, a ten dollar savings over current paper electronic fees (not to mention the savings of postage and special services).
The fee study (PDF) reveals that the higher fees instituted last July have resulted in a 23% revenue increase for the Copyright office even with a 5.6% decrease in registration applications.
The Copyright Office believes that overall, registrations will increase and that more information will be available to the public faster.
Of course, if your best edition isn’t electronic, you’ll need to submit the deposits separately.
Also new: contents titles for collection/group registrations for a very tiny fee ($1/title electronically, $3 on paper - but could discourage very large groups)
Questions: Has electronic trademark filing been around long enough to assuage the fears of the average practitioner (i.e., will the Copyright Office screw up electronic filing somehow?)? Will practitioners adopt it right away, or opt for a wait-and-see approach? And what happens when there’s a muckup with the physical deposit (it’s inevitable!)?
