Last Updated: 01/2026
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Overview:
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Copyright Office data on copyright registrations and other records are organized as a relational database in the MARC 21 format for bibliographic data, which is described in detail in the resources linked below. The data as presented in these files have been grouped by type of work and converted into `.csv` files in two formats to assist analysis: "long" and "wide."

Long form files:
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Also referred to as "raw parsed" data on the website and previous versions, in long format files, each copyright registration record spans multiple rows, with each row being a MARC data field or subfield entry for that record. Variable names follow MARC naming conventions. The files contain the following columns:

- `record_id`*: unique id to keep all tags together for an individual record*
- `tag`: MARC 3-digit tag (see resources below)
- `subfield`: subfield (`NA` if MARC tag has no subfields)
- `value`**: value for datafield (if subfield is `NA`) or subfield
- `.row`*: row in the MARC file (useful for extracting ordered author and claimant information)

Note that repetitions of each tag-subfield pair are common and appear in new rows with different values of the `value` column, but with unique `.row` values. 

* Note these are *not* the same as `row_id` from the 10/2022 version
** Note this column is similar to the `v_` column from the 10/2022 version

Wide form files:
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Also referred to as "tabular" files, these are `.csv` files where each copyright registration or other record spans a single row with many columns representing information about that registration, extracted from relevant MARC tags and subfields.

Note that the methodology for extracting and processing data is different than the 10/22 version of the data, and some older records have been updated, which may result in some minor discrepancies between versions. 

Resources:
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1) https://www.copyright.gov/policy/women-in-copyright-system/LOC-Copyright-Data-as-Distributed-in-the-MARC%2021-Format.pdf
2) https://www.loc.gov/marc/bibliographic/ecbdlist.html

Questions or comments can be directed to economist@copyright.gov.