Preregistration Rulemaking

This Copyright Office rulemaking concerns regulations for the preregistration of unpublished works that are being prepared for commercial distribution in classes of works that the Register of Copyrights determines have had a history of prerelease infringement. For more background information, see the Office's Notice of Proposed Rulemaking published July 22, 2005.


The Office also issued a Supplemental Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on August 4, seeking comments on whether persons using the preregistration system will experience difficulties if it is necessary to use Microsoft's Internet Explorer web browser in order to preregister a work.


Initial Comments were due on August 22, 2005. Reply comments were due on September 7, 2005.


The Office received a total of 232 initial comments. Ten of those comments addressed what classes of works should be eligible for preregistration due to a history of prerelease infringement. The remaining comments addressed the web browser issue.


To assist the Office in compiling as complete a record as possible to determine what classes of works should be eligible for preregistration and to assist persons who wish to submit reply comments on that topic, the Office is making available online those initial comments that addressed what classes of works should be eligible for preregistration due to a history of prerelease infringement.