2410 Full-Term Retention of Deposits
As a general rule, the U.S. Copyright Office will retain the deposit copy(ies) or identifying material for an unpublished work for the full term of the copyright.
The deposit for a published work may be retained under the control of the Office for the longest period considered practicable and desirable by the Register of Copyrights and the Librarian of Congress. At the end of this period, the work may be destroyed.
Upon request and payment of the appropriate fee, the Office will retain the deposit copies for a published work for a period of seventy-five years from the date of publication. This service is known as "full-term retention."
17 U.S.C. § 704(d)-(e).
2410.1 Who May Request Full-Term Retention?
Full-term retention may be requested by the applicant who submitted the initial application or the copyright owner of record for the registered work. 37 C.F.R. § 202.23(a)(1).
2410.2 How to Request Full-Term Retention
To request full-term retention, the requesting party should submit a signed, written request containing the following information:
• The name and contact information of the applicant or the copyright owner of record.
• A clear statement of request for full-term retention.
• The title of the work as it appeared in the application for registration or renewal.
• The date of publication for the work.
• The registration number (if the work has been registered).
The request should be sent to the following address, along with the appropriate fee: U.S. Copyright Office
Attn: Office of Public Records and Repositories / Full-Term Retention P.O. Box 70400 Washington, DC 20024
A request for full-term retention may be submitted with the application for registration or renewal or at any time thereafter. If the request for full-term retention is submitted together with the application for registration or renewal, the applicant should submit an additional copy or phonorecord of the work, along with a cover letter that clearly requests full-term retention.
Chapter 2400 : 29
12/22/2014
