Examples:
- The title on the deposit copy reads Haiku for the Illiterati – Third Edition, but the application identifies the title as Haiku for the Illiterati – Fifth Edition. The registration specialist will communicate with the applicant to determine whether the applicant intends to register the third or the fifth edition and whether the Office received the correct deposit copy. Depending on the applicant’s response, the specialist may amend the registration record to provide relevant information about the third edition or may request appropriate deposit copies for the fifth edition.
- An online application identifies Wilhelmina Puckett as both the author and claimant for an atlas, but the deposit copy identifies the author as Cassandra Smyth. The registration specialist will communicate with the applicant to determine if the correct author has been named on the application. The applicant explains that Wilhelmina Puckett hired Cassandra Smyth to create this work. With the applicant’s permission, the specialist will check the box indicating that the atlas is a work made for hire. The explanation for this change will be included in the registration record.
604 Annotations
An annotation is a statement that the U.S. Copyright Office adds to the registration record to clarify the facts underlying the claim or to identify legal limitations on the claim. The registration specialist may annotate an application without communicating with the applicant if the annotation does not cast doubt on or raise a question concerning the validity of the registration. As discussed in Sections 604.1 through 604.4, annotations may be made for a number of different reasons.
An annotation adds substantive information to the registration itself and is considered part of the certificate of registration, as compared to a note or change in the registration record that is made by the registration specialist as part of his or her cataloging responsibilities (such as adding a note or an index term to the online public record).
604.1 Addressing Variances in the Registration Materials
As discussed in Section 603, the registration specialist may annotate the registration record to address certain variances in the application.
Example:
- Leslie Steward writes a screenplay titled High Heels and a Pickup Truck, which is based on her previously published novel of the same name. In the Note to Copyright Office field Leslie states: “This screenplay is adapted from my novel High Heels and a Pickup Truck, published in 2009,” but the Limitation of Claim screen has been left blank. The specialist will insert this statement in the relevant fields on the Limitation of Claim screen, and will add an annotation to the
