Copyright Office Fees to Increase

The Register of Copyright has proposed increasing fees effective 01 July 2006. On the one hand, this is always a painful process, particularly as it will result in a 50% increase in the basic fee. On the other hand, it's been quite some time since the fees were adjusted. The most-significant of the fee changes are:

	Currently	Proposed
Basic registration	$30	$45
Group registration	$30	$45
Group of published photographs	n/a	$75
Preregistration of certain unpublished works	$100	$150
Recordation of a document for one title	$80	$95
per 10 additional titles	$20	$25
Designation of DMCA agent	$30	$80
Special (expedited) handling fee	$580	$685

71 Fed. Reg. 15368 (Mar. 28, 2006). As I interpret the proposed rulemaking, materials that have been received on or before the effective date will continue to be charged the current fee. That's received, not sent.

One would ordinarily expect an avalanche of registrations during the last part of June. One would probably be wrong; authors and other creators tend to be so lackadaisical about this, and publishers perhaps even more so, that the "avalanche" will probably amount to a noticeable, but manageable, temporary increase.