Copyright Office Requests Public Comment on Removal of Personally Identifiable Information from Registration Records
Issue No. 634 - September 15, 2016

The U.S. Copyright Office today published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“NPRM”), seeking public comment on proposed new rules related to personally identifiable information (“PII”) that may be found in the Office’s registration records. First, the proposed rule will allow an author, claimant of record, or the authorized agent of the author or claimant of record, to request the removal of certain PII that is requested by the Office and collected on a registration application, such as home addresses or personal phone numbers, from the Office’s internet-accessible public catalog, while retaining it in the Office’s offline records as required by law. Second, the proposed rule will codify an existing practice regarding extraneous PII that applicants erroneously include on registration applications even though the Office has not requested it, such as driver’s license numbers, social security numbers, banking information, and credit card information. Under the proposed rule, the Office would, upon request, remove such extraneous PII both from the Office’s internet-accessible public catalog and its offline records.

The Notice of Proposed Rulemaking and instructions on how to submit a comment are available here. Written comments must be received no later than October 17, 2016, at 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time.