US Copyright Office Draft Strategic Plan For Next Five Years

The United States Copyright Office has issued a draft strategic plan for 2016-2020, with a 30-day comment period.

The draft strategic plan is available here.

The United States Copyright Office “supports a vibrant marketplace of creativity and innovation that, in recent years, has been worth trillions of dollars to the global economy and immeasurable value to society at large,” Register of Copyrights Maria Pallante said in the preface to the strategy.

The 35-page strategy draws on four years of internal evaluations and public input. The strategy sets out numerous ways in which the office plans to modernize and improve services in administering the copyright system.

This includes establishing new and updated legal rules and practices, and reducing pendency for applications. An aim is to make the copyright records “easily searchable and widely available to authors, entrepreneurs, and all who need them.”

Early (pre-1978) copyright records are going to be put online and made searchable. A stronger orientation will be developed for businesses’ needs.

Other areas of continued focus will be on providing impartial expertise to institutions and decision-makers, such as the US Congress, and an emphasis on education and training. The plan includes technological upgrades.

Notable is that there will be “special committees and advisory circles” with public and private sector experts advising the office. This includes increasing work with industry, and expanding regular meetings with legal and business advisors from the nonprofit, public sector and private sector.

Separately, the strategy also includes a list of achievements from the past four years.

The plan includes recommendations for improving the financial condition of the office, including:

– Manage policies for Copyright Office investments, systems, and acquisition
processes;

– Submit appropriations requests and operating plans directly to Congress;

– Adopt flexible fee schedules that allow for the recovery of aggregate costs and
certain capital costs, including by applying appropriate differentiations between
large and small actors;

– Spend fee receipts as needed for capital improvements, staffing deficits, and
continuity of service without annual spending caps; and

– Offer flexible opportunities to outside entities, including for complex technology
projects or business-to-business initiatives, consistent with government contracting
requirements and conflicts of interest considerations.