Let's say you find a book you like and want to find out who owns the copyright on it. How would you go about finding out who owns that copyright?
The first, and easiest method of finding out who owns the copyright is to examine the copy of the item you have and find the copyright notice. Most works also list when and where they were published. For sound recordings, check the disc, record, tape, or album cover and liner notes for this information. If you cannot find this information, you can search the catalogs and records of the Copyright Office yourself, or have the Copyright Office conduct this search for you.
There is no fee for you to search the records of the Copyright Office in person, but if you require the office's staff to conduct the search for you, as of press time the fee is $165 per hour of searching, with a two hour minimum required.
Copyright registrations made from 1978 to today are available online to search from the Copyright Office's website. If the copyright owner never officially registered the copyright, then it will most likely not be found in the Copyright Office's database of copyrighted works.
The Copyright Office published a Catalog of Copyright Entries (CCE) in printed form from 1891 through 1978. From 1979 to1982, the Office issued this work in a microfiche format. Some libraries have copies of the CCE. However, the CCE might not be the best place to look for the current owner of a copyright. Nor does the CCE contain a transcript of the copyright record. It also does not contain the address of the copyright owner.
If you wish to travel to the Copyright Office itself to search through the records, the address of the Office is as follows:
The Copyright Office is inside the Library of Congress.
James Madison Memorial Building
101 Independence Avenue SE
Washington, DC 20559-6000
The Copyright Office is typically open from 8:30 AM to 5:00 PM, Monday to Friday except for federal holidays.
The records that are freely available for the public to search includes an extensive card catalog, record books, microfilm, and other documents. Documents such as correspondence and deposit copies are not available to the public for search purposes, but may be inspected if requested and a search fee paid.
If you wish for the Copyright Office's staff to conduct the search for you, the fee (as of this writing) is $165 per hour. This rate applies even if a fraction of an hour is consumed. An estimate can be provided. A written report will be provided at the end of the search period.
This search fee does not cover the cost of printing additional copyright certificates, photocopies, or copies of any other records.
When you make your request to the Copyright Office, please make your request as detailed as possible as this will decrease the search time and ultimately make the search cheaper for you. Information you should provide includes:
- The title of the work, including variants the title may also be known as (for example, the third, Star Wars film, The Return of the Jedi might also be known as The Revenge of the Jedi).
- The name of the author, including pseudonyms. For example, Stephen King has been known to sometimes use the pseudonym Richard Bachman.
- The name of the person who most likely owns the copyright. This is usually either the author, publisher, or producer.
- The year the work was published. On films and television shows, this is sometimes rendered as Roman Numerals.
- The type of work you are searching for (book, computer software, film, photograph, painting, etc).
- The title of the publication the work originally appeared in if it was part of a collection.
- Registration data found on the package, if available.
As in all things, the Copyright Office lists several caveats in conjunction with searching for information in the Copyright Office. The Copyright Office does not maintain lists of works by subject, medium, or of any other type. The Office does not keep track of items that have passed into the public domain. The Office does not compare works to check for infringement or figure out how much two or more works have in common.
Remember, names, titles, and several other things are not copyrightable so there is a possibility that a search will yield many results. Of course, there is no guarantee that a search will yield any results.© ResearchCopyright.com
