Copyright Catalog

United States copyright registrations, renewals, and other catalog entries since 1978 are published online at the United States Copyright Office website.[1] Entries prior to 1978 are not published in the online catalog. Copyright registrations and renewals after 1890 were formerly published in semi-annual softcover catalogs called The Catalog of Copyright Entries (CCE) or Copyright Catalog, or were published in microfiche.[2][3]

Publication history and format

The Copyright Office published the Catalog of Copyright Entries in print format from 1891 through 1978. These volumes may often be available at federal depository libraries. From 1979 through 1982, the CCE was issued in microfiche format. The catalog was divided into parts according to the classes of works registered. Each CCE segment covered all registrations made during a particular period of time. Renewal registrations made from 1979 through 1982 are found in section 8 of the catalog. Renewals prior to that time were generally listed at the end of the volume containing the class of work to which they pertained. Effective with registrations made since 1982, the only way to see the CCE is by using the Internet to access the Copyright Office automated catalog. The automated catalog contains entries from 1978 forward. To access the catalog, go to copyright.gov.[4]

Nature of catalog entries and access to copies of documents

The Catalog of Copyright Entries, the Copyright Card Catalog, and the online files are indexes, not reproductions of original documents. To view or copy the original documents yourself, you must visit the Copyright Office. Information such as registration numbers may be obtained from these files. Providing this information yourself rather than paying a fee to have the Office search for it will reduce the cost of obtaining records and copies from the Copyright Office.[5]

Part 1. BOOKS AND PAMPHLETS, INCLUDING SERIALS AND CONTRIBUTION TO PERIODICALS

Books
Books in foreign languages published abroad
Books in the English language first published abroad
Contributions to periodicals
Renewal registrations

Part 2. PERIODICALS

Periodicals
Periodicals in foreign languages published abroad
Periodicals in the English language first published abroad
Renewal registrations

Parts 3–4. DRAMAS AND WORKS PREPARED FOR ORAL DELIVERY

Lectures and other works prepared for oral delivery
Dramatic and dramatico-musical works published abroad
Published dramatic and dramatico-musical works
Unpublished dramatic and dramatico-musical works
Renewal registrations

Part 5. MUSIC

Musical compositions published abroad
Musical compositions published in the United States
Unpublished music
Renewal registrations

Part 6. MAPS AND ATLASES

Maps
Renewal registrations

Parts 7–11A. WORKS OF ART, REPRODUCTIONS IN WORKS OF ART, SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL DRAWINGS, PHOTOGRAPHIC WORKS, PRINTS AND PICTORIAL ILLUSTRATIONS

Published works of art and designs for works of art
Unpublished works of art and designs for works of art
Reproductions of works of art published in the United States
Published drawings of plastic works of a scientific or technical character
Published photographs
Unpublished photographs
Prints and pictorial illustrations published in the United States
Prints and pictorial illustrations published abroad
Renewal registrations

Part 11B. COMMERCIAL PRINTS AND LABELS

Commercials prints and labels
Renewal registrations

Parts 12–13. MOTION PICTURES AND FILMSTRIPS

Published motion picture photoplays
Unpublished motion picture photoplays:
Published motion pictures other than photoplays
Unpublished motion pictures other than photoplays:
Renewal registrations

For selected categories, the Library of Congress published hardcover books of copyright registrations covering ten or more years. These include

  • Dramatic Compositions Copyrighted in the United States 1870 to 1916, a two-volume set, published in 1918. Volume 1 (pages 1 – 1662) has alphabetized works with titles from A through N (consecutively numbered 1 – 33,176). Volume 2 (pages 1663–2830) has alphabetized works with titles from O through Z (consecutively numbered 33,177 – 56,066); page 2831 has titles that begin with numerals. Pages 2832–33 have Additions and Corrections. Page 2834 is blank. Pages 2835 – 3547 is an alphabetical index of authors, with each name followed by that author’s works.
  • Catalog of Copyright Entries: Cumulative Series. Motion Pictures 1912–1939 (51,112 films), published in 1951. L.C. card, 51-60018. (copy)
  • Motion Pictures 1894–1912 Identified from the Records of the United States Copyright Office by Howard Lamarr Wells (8,506 films), published in 1953. (This is the only cumulative copyright catalog with an author credit.) L.C. card, 53-60033.
  • Catalog of Copyright Entries: Cumulative Series. Motion Pictures 1940–1949 (18,767 films and early TV programs), published in 1953. L.C. card, 53-60032.
  • Catalog of Copyright Entries: Cumulative Series. Motion Pictures 1950–1959 (27,310 films and TV programs), published in 1960. L.C. card, 53-60032.
  • Catalog of Copyright Entries: Cumulative Series. Motion Pictures 1960–1969 (34,277 films and TV programs), published in 1971. L.C. card, 53-60032.

Catalog reprints

All of the cumulative Copyright Catalogs listed above are out of print. However, the complete text of registrations and indexes in the four volumes of motion pictures from 1894 through 1959 have been reprinted in the Film Superlist series.

A number of entities have scanned all or some of the volumes of the CCE. The Stanford Library and the University of Pennsylvania library have each scanned a section of the records and put them into a database. At the University of Pennsylvania, they have scanned book and serials renewals, searchable by year at The Catalog of Copyright Entries.[6] Stanford has also placed renewal records into a Copyright Renewals[7] searchable database. More recently, Google has indexed many volumes of the CCE into a searchable index, available at Searching Google's Scans of the Catalog of Copyright Entries.[8] The Internet Archive has similarly scanned and indexed the volumes of the CCE, as well as many other US Copyright Office works, and makes the works both searchable and viewable as scans by searching for the "collection:copyrightrecords" at Internet Archive: Digital Library of Free & Borrowable Books, Movies, Music & Wayback Machine.[9]

Criticism

Privacy

The Copyright Catalog has been criticized in that the public catalog includes personally identifiable information like home addresses and phone numbers of artists; removing or replacing that data may be hard.[10][11][12]

See also

Notes
  1. "U.S. Copyright Office". copyright.gov. Retrieved Sep 26, 2020.
  2. Copyright and the Public Domain pages 11–10; Stephen Fishman – Law Journal Press (2008); ISBN 978-1-58852-151-4
  3. "The Catalog of Copyright Entries". onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu. Retrieved 2017-01-09.
  4. Publications on Copyright · 4 U.S. Copyright Office · Library of Congress · 101 Independence Avenue SE · Washington, DC 20559-6000 · www.copyright.gov circular 02 rev: 05 / 2010 print: 05 / 2010 — x,000 U.S. government printing office: 2010-xxx-xxx / xx,xxx
  5. Circular 6, Obtaining Access to and Copies of Records and Deposits, page 4 U. S. Copyright Office · Library of Congress · 101 Independence Avenue SE · Washington, DC 20559-6000 · www.copyright.gov circular 6 rev: 02 / 2010 print: 02 / 2010 — ••,••• U.S. government printing office: 2010-•••-••• / •••••
  6. "The Catalog of Copyright Entries". onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu. Retrieved Sep 26, 2020.
  7. "Copyright Renewals". Spotlight at Stanford. Retrieved Sep 26, 2020.
  8. "Searching Google's Scans of the Catalog of Copyright Entries". books.google.com. Retrieved Sep 26, 2020.
  9. "Internet Archive: Digital Library of Free & Borrowable Books, Movies, Music & Wayback Machine". archive.org. Retrieved Sep 26, 2020.
  10. "Removal of Personally Identifiable Information From Registration Records". Federal Register. Sep 15, 2016. Retrieved Sep 26, 2020.
  11. "Where creative professionals come to learn about the law so they can create with confidence". Aug 2, 2016. Retrieved Sep 26, 2020.
  12. "Privacy vs. Copyright: Don't Make Writers Choose | NWU". Retrieved Sep 26, 2020.
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