Copyright Office's Strategic Plan Includes Small Claims and Modernization Efforts

On January 20, the U.S. Copyright Office released its "2022–2026 Strategic Plan: Fostering Creativity and Enriching Culture." The short plan provides a cursory overview of ongoing initiatives of the Copyright Office, including the establishment of a small claims copyright board to hear infringement controversies involving no more than $30,000. Free State Foundation President Randolph May and I recommended that Congress authorize a small claims copyright board in our book Modernizing Copyright Law: Constitutional Foundations for Reform (2020). Congress did so by passing the CASE Act in December 2020. As mentioned in a December 2021 blog post, the small claims board is expected to begin operations in the spring of 2022. 

The Copyright Office's plan also described its ongoing work "building a new Enterprise Copyright System (ECS) to make all of the Office's services digitized, interconnected, searchable, and easy to navigate." In our book Modernizing Copyright Law, FSF President May and I also emphasized the importance of updating and improving the technological capabilities of the Copyright Office. We recommended that Congress make the Copyright Office independent from the Library of Congress. In our view, structural reform of the Office would better enable the agency to dedicate and prioritize resources to accomplishing its modernization needs. Technological improvements would make it easier for Americans to register copyrights, access title information, and record title transfers. To date, Congress has not pursued structural reforms of the Copyright Office. However, as far as they go, the Office's ongoing efforts upgrade its capabilities to further its "core services of registration, recordation, and statutory licensing" are welcome. 

 

Although the Copyright Office's Strategic Plan doesn't offer any new details about its ongoing work, the plan does provide a reminder of its key ongoing initiatives such as small claims and Office modernization. The course of the Office's progress on both of those fronts deserve attention in 2022.