US Copyright Office Proposes to Raise Fees

OffTopic

The US Copyright Office is proposing to raise copyright registration fees next year (2013). For photographers the fee for e-filing would increase from $35 per submission to $65, and a paper filing that now costs $65 would increase to $100. This is a huge increase, especially coming during tough economic times. Increasing registration fees this much would cause even fewer photographers to take this necessary step to protect their rights. We have until May 14, 2012 to provide feedback to the Office of General Counsel of the US Copyright Office via an electronic form on their site before the proposal is presented to Congress for review. Please take a minute to submit your feedback.

Form to Submit Feedback

Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on Copyright Fees

Sam

Ya gota love the government. NOT!

Here is a summary statement from the "Notice of proposed rulemaking"


SUMMARY: The Copyright Office is proposing the adoption of new fees for the registration of claims, recordation of documents, special services, LicensingDivision services, and processing of FOIA requests. The proposed fees would recover a significant part of the costs to the Office for services that
benefit both copyright owners and the public, and provide full cost recovery for many services which benefit only or primarily the user of that service. As part of the fee setting process, the Office
is providing an opportunity to the public to comment on the proposed changes before submitting the fee
schedule to Congress for review.

You can't make this stuff up............................................

You should download the entire document. They are going to charge $200.00 per hour for searching their documents / files, and if you need it expedited it jumps to $500.00 per hour.

Also as a small side note while the copyright office is encouraging us to comment, they plan no review based on those comments and will send this schedule of new fees to Congress as is.

Congress does not have to act on this at all. It just needs to do what it does best. Sit on their fat lazy bottoms and do nothing. In order for Congress to stop this it would have to pass a law denying approval of the proposed new fees. If Congress does nothing the new fees are implemented.

I will give you three guesses as to what will happen.

Sam

Glort

Here in oz, copyright is Automatic and free.
What's more, there is a government agency that will prosecute infringement cases for you for free and with no liability to yourself.
I have used them and they are bloody awesome. If they assess your case and view it to be valid and take it on, look out. These guys go for the throat and don't let go.
Few private solicitors are inclined to tangle with them unless someone with some real deep pockets wants to finance them.

From what I understood, the US is in virtually unrecoverable debt anyhow.
What's the diff if the copyright office racks up a few more million?

chrismar

Glort wrote: »

Here in oz, copyright is Automatic and free.
What's more, there is a government agency that will prosecute infringement cases for you for free and with no liability to yourself.
I have used them and they are bloody awesome. If they assess your case and view it to be valid and take it on, look out. These guys go for the throat and don't let go.
Few private solicitors are inclined to tangle with them unless someone with some real deep pockets wants to finance them.

From what I understood, the US is in virtually unrecoverable debt anyhow.
What's the diff if the copyright office racks up a few more million?

What about us USians who've had images stolen in Oz? Will the same government agency help me protect my copyright abroad?