Although the Office will record a document after it has been executed, it does not issue or enforce notices of termination, transfers of ownership, or other documents pertaining to copyright. The Office only serves as an office of public record for such documents. For this reason, a document that is submitted for recordation should not consist of a letter or other written communication addressed to the Register of Copyrights or the U.S. Copyright Office.
The fact that a document has been recorded is not a determination by the U.S. Copyright Office concerning the validity or the effect of that document. That determination can only be made by a court of law. As discussed above, the Office only examines documents to determine if they comply with the requirements of the Copyright Act and the Office's regulations. The Office will not attempt to interpret the substantive content of any document that has been submitted for recordation. Likewise, the Office will not attempt to determine whether a document satisfies the legal requirements that may be necessary for it to be effective or enforced.
Members of the general public who submit documents for recordation cannot expect the Office to screen a document for even obvious errors or discrepancies. Therefore, parties are strongly advised to review and scrutinize any document to ensure that the document is legally sufficient to accomplish the purpose for which it is intended before it is submitted for recordation.
As discussed above, a recorded document will be made available to the general public upon request. Therefore, parties should be aware that if a recorded document contains private, confidential, or personally identifiable information that information will be accessible to any person who submits a request to inspect or copy that document.
2306 Indexing
When a document is recorded with the U.S. Copyright Office, the recordation specialist will create an online public record that contains pertinent information about the recorded document. This process is known as "indexing."
2306.1 The Online Public Record
The online public record for a recorded document typically contains the following information:
• A brief statement identifying the type of document that has been recorded [e.g., assignment, exclusive license, memorandum of publishing rights agreement, etc.].
• The identifying number that has been assigned to the document [e.g., V3487 D777 PI).
• The date of recordation.
• The name(s) of the parties listed in the document.
• The title(s) of the workfs] listed in the document (if any].
Chapter 2300 : 13
12/22/2014
