U.S. Copyright Office threatens small publisher with massive fines for...

[just Warren]

...not sending them two free copies of each of his books.

The law is long obsolete yet someone in the Copyright Office decided to pull it out anyway and use it on someone who does not even keep a physical inventory of books around.

This is the kind of small-scale, low-level egregious behavior that is not noticed by most but because it is so prevalent makes up most of the abuse people suffer at the hands of the government.

The big things like the Bundy ranch deal or the really big and awful things like Waco make the headlines but they're rare events. It's this little stuff that goes on all the time that really eats away at the fabric of trust that's supposed exist between the government and the governed.   

[Ned Hamford]

Where would they even put them?

[lupinus]

Where would they even put them?

I've got an idea where they could put them all.

But they might not like it.

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

[Hawkmoon]

If the law applies to anything that is copyrightable, then anything any of us writes would qualify. I think we should get everyone we know to write a small treatise on ... something ... and submit it to the copyright office in order to comply with the law and secure our copyrights. We should all do it on a weekly, or at least monthly, basis. Bury them under an avalanche of paper.

[Jamisjockey]

Part of my jurisdiction is the Special Flight Rules Area around DC. 
I get absolutely no leeway on dealing with violators.  It goes up the chain out of my hands immediately.  I can't just chew a dude out who's violation wasn't egregious or doesn't appear intentional.  One of the common ones is near JYO airport. There is a small shelf where pilots can follow a local procedure and go in and out without talking to ATC.  If they clip the corner even by a mile or two, it's a violation. 
Now, when the FAA investigates they can later determine to send the pilot a warning.  But that's way above my pay grade.

[MechAg94]

I was wondering if he could send them a bunch of electronic files and claim they are complying.

[Triphammer]

I was wondering if he could send them a bunch of electronic files, on 5 1/4" floppies, and claim they are complying.

My first thought.

[HeroHog]

Make sure they are in pure binary format.

[Hawkmoon]

Make sure they are in pure binary format.

Or Wordstar ...

[Firethorn]

I was wondering if he could send them a bunch of electronic files and claim they are complying.

This is what I would accept.

Personally, I think that if you are going to get a nice century plus of copyright, that you should have to register, so that makers of derivative works can always find you.  Lots of works out there where the holder of the copyright can't be found, like some mortgage companies that went bankrupt, whose buyers went bankrupt, etc...  Until the holder of the mortgage note cannot be found.  Clouds the issue right up.

As part of this, I would want electronic copies submitted these days as well to make sure the work itself isn't lost.

I've dealt with too many cases of the source code for programs being lost.

[Hawkmoon]

How to register a copyright:

https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-register.html

What Is Mandatory Deposit?

All copyrighted works that are published in the United States are subject to the “mandatory deposit” provision of the copyright law. As a general rule, this provision requires that two complete copies of the “best edition” of a copyrightable work published in the United States be sent to the Copyright Office for the collections of the Library of Congress within three months of publication. The “best edition” of a work is “the edition, published in the United States at any time before the date of deposit, that the Library of Congress determines to be most suitable for its purposes.” The owner of copyright or of the exclusive right of publication may comply with this requirement either by submitting the best edition of the work when registering the work with the Office or by submitting the work without seeking a registration and solely for the purpose of fulfilling the mandatory deposit requirement. The mandatory deposit provision helps ensure that the Library of Congress obtains copies of every copyrightable work published in the United States for its collections or for exchange with or transfer to any other library.

For more information, see Mandatory Deposit of Copies or Phonorecords for the Library of Congress (Circular 7D) and Best Edition of Published Copyrighted Works for the Collections of the Library of Congress (Circular 7B).

[Hawkmoon]

Where would they even put them?

The Library of Congress is the largest library in the world. Last I knew (which was about twenty years ago), the second largest was the main library at Yale University.

[Regolith]

This is what I would accept.

Personally, I think that if you are going to get a nice century plus of copyright, that you should have to register, so that makers of derivative works can always find you.  Lots of works out there where the holder of the copyright can't be found, like some mortgage companies that went bankrupt, whose buyers went bankrupt, etc...  Until the holder of the mortgage note cannot be found.  Clouds the issue right up.

As part of this, I would want electronic copies submitted these days as well to make sure the work itself isn't lost.

I've dealt with too many cases of the source code for programs being lost.

It's one thing to require the copies in order to register the copyright and gain the legal protections afforded by that, but it's another thing entirely to start threatening to fine someone for NOT registering.

[Devonai]

When I published my first novel back in 2004, the publisher informed me that I had to send one copy to the Library of Congress, at my own expense. I did, and never got any sort of confirmation of receipt. I didn't bother with the others.

 

[KD5NRH]

Or Wordstar ...

Truecolor high resolution .tiff of all pages, with the file split across multiple 8" floppies.

[Firethorn]

It's one thing to require the copies in order to register the copyright and gain the legal protections afforded by that, but it's another thing entirely to start threatening to fine someone for NOT registering.

I agree, I'm sorry I didn't make that clearer with 'going to get' being that doing so would be voluntary, but if you want copyright protection you have to do it.

Back when I was first proposing it, the internet was present, but low bandwidth and cloud storage a dream.  But even then I knew that digital was the thing.  So for written works I wanted them in an unencrypted standard media format.  Think PDF, but I wanted to include the formats used by the major publishers to run their printing systems.  For movies and such, the DVD glass masters.  Painting?  A high definition digital scan at least.  Music/Recordings?  A lossless high definition recording(or at least the best you have), Etc...

And I'd set copyright to something like 20 years, extendable for a reasonable fee that would go towards storing all this stuff and eventually make it all accessible.  The first "Free" with the submission of the archive quality copy, but after that you pay storage fees unless you want to release it to the public, copyright expired.  I'd have the library of congress able to charge for access, preferably a cheap subscription model, which pays to keep the public domain stuff accessible.

[Hawkmoon]

Apparently the law requires submitting two copies of the "best edition" of the publication. And

The “best edition” of a work is “the edition, published in the United States at any time before the date of deposit, that the Library of Congress determines to be most suitable for its purposes.”

So if you're putting out printed books, even if the method of delivery is print-on-demand, I suppose that means the author should pony up for having two copies printed to submit to the Library of Congress. But ... what about eBooks? They exist only as digital files, to be downloaded onto a Nook or Fire or some kind of eBook reader device. Can you e-mail the Library of Congress a PDF of the publication? Do you send it to them on a CD or DVD? Is a thumb drive acceptable?

I think we have another situation where technology has outrun the law. That aside, I cannot understand why the .gov is choosing to pursue this one author. It would seem that a simpler solution would be to just tell him that his books aren't copyrighted because he failed to meet the requirements for registering the copyright.

What about architects? Supposedly all architects' designs are copyrighted automatically, but I've never heard of an architect submitting two copies of the plans (which, for a large building, can run to hundreds of sheets of 30x42 or 36x48 paper) to the Library of Congress.

[French G.]

Open some really large and obnoxious thread from any stupid bulletin board, claim a copyright for your feeble posts and hit Ctrl P twice! Mail it!

[MechAg94]

I often think that lack of enforcement or selective enforcement should be a defense to prosecution in court.  Meaning if EVERY publisher in the US is not sending copies of everything they publish and they are not all getting cited and fined, then they can't go after this one guy. 

[Hawkmoon]

My brother used to be the business manager for a small publisher of obscure, academic books. If we were on speaking terms I would ask him if they sent two copies of every book to the Library of Congress. However, that's not going to (or, in modern parlance, "gonna") happen.

[Firethorn]

I wonder if somebody tried to request one of his books through the LoC, the LoC realized that it didn't have them, and that is what caused this stink.