U.S. Copyright Registry Called a Scam
By Jonathan Bailey • Mar 11th, 2008 • Category: Articles, Legal Issues, Personal Experiences
A reader tipped me off to an email that is circulating from a company known as the U.S. Copyright Registry.
The email, which is sent to the administrative contact of a domain, says that:
“You are required to advise the US Copyright Registry of your intent to license this website if registration is administered through the UCR as this is your final notice.”
If you receive this email, please disregard it. Despite the official-sounding name, the U.S. Copyright Registry (UCR) is not the United States Copyright Office (USCO). Though much of the legal information contained within it is at somewhat accurate, the attempts to push you to use the UCR’s service are both unnecessary and costly.
What They Do
If you visit the UCR Web site, it is very difficult to figure out what they do. However, it is their “About Us” page where they explain their services:
“The U.S. Copyright Registry handles the entire process of registering copyright for website owners from filing the application and paying all necessary filing fees as well as depositing and submitting copies of the work to the copyright office. All government forms are reviewed extensively using our automated system for accuracy, completeness and common errors. All registration is administered by the U.S. Copyright Office of the Library of Congress.”
In short, what the service does is register your site with the USCO, handling the forms, deposits and fees. For this service, according to a representative I spoke with on the phone, the UCR charges $350, ten times the filing fee for an electronic copyright registration at the USCO itself.
In function, the service is actually very similar to C-Site by GoDaddy. However, GoDaddy’s “Express Application” service is just $71.99, including the filing fee.
However, virtually any one who can download their site to a CD can register it. While the Electronic Copyright Office system is a tangled mess, filing out a Short Form TX (PDF) is very simple and fast.
There is very little reason to consider using a service such as the UCR, especially at the price it is charging.
The UCR Response
Prior to this article, I called the UCR and spoke with both a front line representative, who gave me the basic overview of the service, and a supervisor named Thomas Young that answered my questions.
According to Young, the main function of the emails is to inform Webmasters of their intellectual property rights and that there is no intention of causing confusion. He repeatedly assured me that the official USCO Web site was at copyright.gov and that the emails were in no way an attempt to cause confusion.
I pointed out that the official USCO site address does not appear anywhere in the email, Young did not immediately respond.
Young did say that they offered the registration service but stressed that the main goal of the service was to notify and educate Webmasters to their rights.
Conclusions
When you pair a strongly-worded email with an official-sounding name and a copyright registration service that does the same function as the USCO, confusion is both inevitable and predictable.
WHile I will leave everyone to their own judgment if this service is truly a “scam”, it is clearly an email you can and should ignore.
If you want assistance with your copyright registration, there are cheaper services available. However, there is no obstacle to doing it yourself and either paying the $45 paper filing fee or the $35 electronic one.
If the service truly is only interested in notifying Webmasters of their rights, I hope that they would be willing to make changes to their language and add all of the information consumers need to make an informed decision about if and how to register their works.
As it is, they are only adding to the confusion over copyright and not helping anyone, but perhaps themselves.
Jonathan Bailey is The Webmaster and author of Plagiarism Today, which he founded in 2005 as a way to help Webmasters going through content theft problems get accurate information and stay up to date on the rapidly-changing field. He is also a consultant to Webmasters and companies to help them devise practical content protection strategies and develop good copyright policies.
Email this author | All posts by Jonathan Bailey
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Gotta admit though, its a good and (probably) legal scam. Unethical, but pretty creative.
Advertise and hope someone who is ignorant to the real registration prices takes their $300+ service (without telling them it actually costs much less), give them a $30 copyright, and take the rest as profit. I could see many small business owners falling for it.
With that said, I’ll be writing up a post about it on Friday. I think I’ve gotten one of those e-mails before… UCR sounds a bit familiar.
There are three areas where it could run into trouble. One is as a violation for CAN-SPAM since the site emails admin accounts for domains seemingly at random. The second would be impersonation of a Federal official for creating confusion about being the USCO. Finally would be general fraud. However, I have a feeling they’ve carefully worked around each issue.
There is a good chance you did get one of the emails. Check in your domain admin count if you can’t find it. That seems to be where it goes.
Let me know when you post about it! I’ll be eager to read your thoughts.
We see a lot of these types of communications sent to our trademark clients. Once a federal trademark application is filed, it’s public record, and there are loads of unscrupulous entities who take the opportunity to send very official-looking mailings to the applicant. These usually offer monitoring services, or offer to place the mark on some other privately-held register, all for inflated prices and using names and logos designed to look governmental. We tell our trademark clients to ignore anything like this that comes their way, as we are the sole contact for communications from the PTO.
USCR operates in a different manner, of course. And if they can convince a site owner that the (mostly unnecessary) services they’re offering are worth the price, more power to them. That line you’ve quoted from their email certainly has the whiff of an intent to deceive, however.
In that regard, I think they operate very much like what you see with your trademark clients, they target people who have registered domains and email them these offers.
It just reiterates the need for Webmasters especially to understand at least the basics of their IP rights…
Now that I’ve read the full email, I notice USCR repeatedly refers to the USPTO, not the US Copyright Office. For example…
“Protecting a website is the responsibility of the owner of the website and must be registered through the United States Patent and Trademark office.”
“Domain name and trademark registration does not register your website for copyright registration and it is the responsibility of the website owner to register with the United States Patent and Trademark Office to complete registration.”
“If you fail to reply to this notice this website will NOT be registered through UCR to the United States Patent and Trademark Office.”
As you and your readers likely well know, the USPTO has nothing whatsoever to do with copyright registration. So not only is USCR offering services most don’t need, they don’t appear to know exactly what they’re talking about.
For most people, if you can fill out a job application, you can fill out a Short Form TX, which is all most sites need…
I heard about this company much.But I realy do not know what to say.
[...] For a more in depth look at the US Copyright Registry be sure to check out Plagiarism Today. [...]