Intellectual Property Research: Copyright Regulations

• Copyright Basics (Circular 1)
  • Copyright is a form of protection provided by the laws of the United States to the authors of “original works of authorship”
    that are fixed in a tangible form of expression. An original work of authorship is a work that is independently created by
    a human author and possesses at least some minimal degree of creativity. A work is “fixed” when it is captured (either
    by or under the authority of an author) in a sufficiently permanent medium such that the work can be perceived, reproduced, or communicated for more than a short time. Copyright protection in the United States exists automatically from the moment the original work of authorship is fixed.
• All Copyright Circulars
  • Circulars are published by the Copyright Office to provide up-to-date and authoritative information to a general audience.
  • How to Investigate the Copyright Status of a Work
• Copyright Office Website
• Copyright Public Records System
• Fair Use Index
  • Provided by the U.S. Copyright Office to collect case law on the fair use doctrine. The goal of the Index is to make the principles and application of fair use more accessible and understandable to the public by presenting a searchable database of court opinions, including by category and type of use (e.g., music, internet/digitization, parody).
• Legislative Developments
  • Tracks pending and enacted copyright legislation
• Public Catalog
  • Database of works registered and copyright documents recorded with the U.S. Copyright Office since January 1, 1978.
  • Guide to Searching the Copyright Office Catalog
• Stanford University Libraries: Searching the Copyright Office and Library of Congress Records
  • Guide on how to search copyright records of the Copyright Office and Library of Congress.

U.S. Copyright regulations are found in title 37 of the Code of Federal Regulations (C.F.R.).  The library has a print set of the official C.F.R. (Mulberry Wing, ask at Circulation for specific location)  Electronic versions are available through the Government Printing Office (GovInfo), Lexis and Westlaw.

• 37 C.F.R. Chapters III & IV
• Official version of the C.F.R. Each title is updated annually on a rotating basis: 28-41 are revised as of July 1. However, it is not unusual for the publication of Title 37 to be delayed.

HeinOnline offers full historic coverage of the C.F.R., which can be useful when faced with an issue based on previous copyright regulations.

• Copyright Office Review Board Opinions
  • The Copyright Office Review Board hears final administrative appeals of refusals of copyright registration. This page contains an online database of those decisions from April 2016 to present.
• Compendium of U.S. Copyright Office Practices
  • The Compendium of U.S. Copyright Office Practices is a manual produced by the United States Copyright Office. It is intended to be used primarily by the Copyright Office staff, as a general guide to the Copyright Office policies and procedures such as registration, deposit and recordation.