Regulation of people’s relations in respect of the copyright and reproduction rights of certain works of art or science has always been rather controversial. As well, people have always tried to modify and improve the regulations ruling this sphere of social life. For this purpose, the existing regulations have been updated based on the results of their performance for a certain period (Bouchoux, 2002). Thus, a kind of precedent law has been established in the area of copyright because the existing laws and regulations are changed if they prove to be inefficient. The recent proposal of the Copyright Office is directed at making some more changes to the copyright law.
In more detail, the amendments offered by the Copyright Office in the document titled Recordation of Notices of Termination of Transfers and Licenses; clarifications concern mainly the order of filing notices of termination, the mailing addresses they should be filed to, the very techniques of the notices’ compilation, and the fees for the consideration of the latter. The point by which the Copyright Office ruled while offering the following amendments was that the order of filing of notices of termination left much space for controversy, and the amendment presented is aimed at the disambiguation of any disputable points.
First of all, the current order of filing the notices of termination, the documents that allow the authors of certain works or their heirs to have the second attempt in marketing this work, leaves it unclear when notices of termination should be filed, how their legibility is checked, and what are the fees for consideration and recordation of the notices of termination by the Copyright Office.
What is proposed is to establish clear guidelines for any person or an organization willing to file a notice of termination. First of all, the term of filing is stated clearly and the untimely notices are either returned to the authors, in case if they are premature, or recorded but not indexed properly, in case if they are late for submission. This is a positive proposal as it might solve the issue of untimely submission of the documents.
Moreover, the clear statement of the mailing address the notices of termination should be sent to, as well as the establishment of the specialized mailbox in the Copyright Office, can also be viewed only positively. Instead of two currently functioning addresses, the authors have the single one which also makes the process of filing easier. The person does not have to find out what address is the most fitting for his/her notice of termination and this improves the timing issues as well. A clear understanding of the destination makes it easier for a person to timely prepare and file the notice of termination.
Finally, the timing issues have often occurred in the past due to the wrong fees filed by the authors together with their notices. Fees’ being either excessive or lacking makes the Copyright Office carry out unscheduled calculations which are rather time-consuming. A clear statement of the fee amounting to $95 per title and $10 additional payment for every 10 titles besides the one will allow the authors of notices to avoid ambiguity in fees and make the process of filing the notices easier and faster (Bouchoux, 2002). Therefore, the proposal of the amendments by the Copyright Office can be assessed ultimately positively. The initiatives proposed will facilitate the updating and improvement of the copyright law and the very procedure of filing the notices of termination.
Works Cited
Bouchoux , Deborah E. Intellectual Property The Law of Trademark, Copyrights, Patents, and Trade Secrets. Delmar Cengage Learning; 2 edition, 2002.