Modernization catalyzes global IP integration.

All those reports make a simple point: the outdated and ineffective IT procurement processes at the Library of Congress have forced the US Copyright Office to try to run a 21st century copyright system with 19th and 20th century technologies. That anachronism disserves the legitimate interests of everyone affected by copyrights – creators, creative industries, content distributors, and users of expressive works. The Copyright Office needs independent IT funding and procurement authority, and internal IT personnel, in order to use the latest technologies to make copyright registration, recordation, and search far more effective, efficient and accessible than they are today.

The potential benefits of doing so extend well beyond mere matters of administrative efficiency. The US copyright system is fairly unique. Before 1978, it required protected works to be registered when they were published. Today, it still strongly encourages, but does not require, copyright owners to register at least potentially valuable works promptly. The resulting continuous flow of applications creates an incentive for the US to design a copyright system that could – perhaps by leveraging some of the expertise of world-leading US technology companies – become a model for what could then become a more globally integrated system that would make it relatively easy to determine a work’s copyright status and ownership in any given jurisdiction. There is no technical or legal reason why such a system cannot exist, and be as easy to use as legal database-and-search services like Lexis or Westlaw.

Sadly, as of today, we are not living up to this potential, as US copyright registration and recordation remain rather slow, clunky processes. As for current systems for searching copyright status, my TechPolicyDaily.com editors prohibit use of any of the terms that seem appropriately descriptive.

Precisely because there is much to be gained – and because essentially all interests affected by copyrights are badly served by the status quo – copyright modernization efforts could generate the sort of broad support needed to enact corrective legislation in the near term. But there is still one issue that could thwart copyright modernization efforts: the critical issue of how (or how much) to increase Copyright Office autonomy.