In a move that has been long predicted, the Library of Congress announced yesterday that it is raising its rates on certain copyright registrations, scheduled to go into effect August 1.

Registrations filed via the USCO’s new form CO, which uses barcode scanning technology, will rise from $45 to $50 and old paper applications, such as form TX, will rise from $45 to $65. Registrations filed through the Copyright Office’s online eCO system will remain at $35.

According to the Copyright Office, this reflects the effort and resources it takes to process each registration. The old paper forms, which are still favored by many who file registrations, are the most labor-intensive while the new form CO is less so and the online system is the least. The Copyright Office hopes that this will steer more people to using the electronic system, despite its understood bugs and issues, as it will speed up the process of sending out certificates and, hopefully, help the USCO work through its mammoth backlog.

The biggest surprise in the price increases is that the original Wall Street Journal article (linked above) indicated that the increase would be for all paper applications. The fact that form CO was only increased $5 is an interesting development, but not entirely shocking considering that it uses a dynamic barcode system (one where the barcorde is dynamically created as the user fills in the PDF) to make copyright registrations much more simple.

What it Means

For most, this means extremely little. Very few take the time to register their works as very few people have much practical reason to consider filing a suit. However, if you are thinking of filing a registration and wish to use the paper forms, you should probably do so before August 1. That being said, you should probably expect to wait until at least December 2010 for your certificate.

If you’re planning on using the eCO system, you have no need to pay attention to this. The fees for electronic registrations remain unchanged and it is more likely that the USCO will reduce those fees in the future to further encourage such filings.

But the big question is whether or not this will work. The USCO has said they are hoping that this “inspires another 30 to 40 percent of filers to use eCO” but that seems, at best, unlikely.

Considering the extreme delays in filing copyright registrations and already-higher costs, it seems unlikely that simply raising the price another $20 will sway too many people from using the copyright forms they are most familiar with. Furthermore, filing via a short form TX is significantly faster than going through the eCO system, meaning that any raise in the filling fees will be significantly less than the savings in attorney or consultant fees.

In short, if you aren’t self-filing, the eCO system is still by far the worst deal.

Because of this, while I expect that these new fees will motivate some people to switch to the electronic system, I don’t think it will be anywhere near the 30-40 percent that they are hoping. The only way that one can hope to reduce the fees that much is to eliminate paper filing (save perhaps via Form CO) or require that all paper registrations come with the ultra-high “Special Handling” fee, which is currently $685 but is moving up to $750 in August.

Bottom Line

The end result of this change will probably be more of the same for most filers. If you’re already using the eCO system, you probably won’t change. If you’re using the Form CO, I doubt the $5 increase will motivate you away. If you’re using the traditional forms, you definitely have more to think about, but I don’t think that this, in most cases, will sway filers.

In the end, the biggest difference most people will notice is the amount they write on their checks.

The system, which has been in beta testing for nearly a year, enables copyright holders to register their works with the USCO online. This lowers the cost of registration to $35 and, theoretically, speeds up the registration process.

The move to push the system live was not accompanied by any announcement on the USCO site, but rather, by simply moving the ECO link to the middle of the page, replacing the previous information about registering via mail, and pointing the “registration” tab to the ECO system.

According to the site, paper forms are still available but can not be downloaded on the site. Instead, one has to request that the USCO mail them copies in order to receive them. Also, I still have electronic copies of many of the paper forms if anyone needs them and they can also be found elsewhere on the Web.

I reviewed the ECO system previously and updated it shortly after. However, it appears that the ECO system, from my brief look at it since, has not made any significant improvements from those reviews, leaving it a severely flawed system.

Still, it is worth noting that the system is available for everyone and that it is functional. If anyone has been holding off on registering their works with the USCO, waiting for the system to come online, your wait is now over.

However, I can only hope that far more radical changes will be forthcoming.

The system, which is currently in beta, drew very little praise and seemed to be plagued with problems including technical, usability and speed issues.

However, in that review, I had been unable to complete a registration due to a lack of need and uncertainties about the system, leaving the review somewhat incomplete.

Earlier this week, I got the chance to complete the process as I returned to file a registration, thus giving me the chance to walk through the payment and upload process.

Unfortunately, the new experiences with the system did nothing to improve my opinion of the service and, instead, only worsened my already sour opinion of the ECO service.

Payment

When you reach the end of your registration process, before you are allowed to upload your work, you are required to pay the $35 fee for registration.

Unfortunately, the system for filing your payment is unnecessarily complex and is confusing, even for someone who regularly purchases items on the Web.

To initiate the process, you can choose to either pay with your USCO deposit account, which requires prior setup, or with your credit card/bank account.

However, clicking the “Credit Card/ACH” button takes you to a screen with nothing but the ACH information on it. The page, which is hosted on the pay.gov Web site, a site run by the U.S. Treasury, asks for your ban account and checking information first, pushing the more familiar credit card payment off of the screen, even on larger monitors.

This resulted in an extended period of confusion trying to find the credit card form with no luck. It was only on the third try that, out of frustration, I scrolled down to find it.

However, once the information was put through, things did not improve. I was then asked to enter my email address to receive a confirmation letter of the transaction. Unfortunately, you also have to agree to a terms of service for the registration and the tick mark to agree is to the right of the “I agree” sentence, not the left.

Even if you read the text on the page very carefully, it is easy to miss the checkbox and and receive an error message when submitting the form and, even when warned of the mistake, it can be hard to locate the box.

Though these might seem like minor usability issues, they turned what should have been a two or three minutes credit card purchase into a twenty minute ordeal. In the time it took me to figure out how to pay for the registration, I likely could have filled out the Short Form TX (PDF), burned the CD and written a check.

However, the ordeal did not end there. With payment secured, I was then forced to upload the work itself. But with other reviews hinting at problems with the upload process, this was easily the part I was most worried about, especially considering that the USCO already had my money and the amount was non-refundable.

Uploading

The file I was registering was a zip file approximately 100 MB in size and contained and entire Web site with images and text. I debated, based upon information I had read, breaking the file up into two parts but decided to first try the file in one shot.

Fortunately, the process went relatively smoothly. After selecting the file and giving it a title, an upload dialog box appeared and it started to transmit the file to the service.

Of all the elements to the registration process, this was the only part that struck me as remotely modern. The dialog box updated in close to real time, provided an accurate estimate of time remaining and a good approximation of upload speed.

Through the entire process, I had upload speeds of about 67 KB per second and the file took roughly 20 minutes to upload. Though it is a respectable speed, I’ve achieved much faster uploads over IM and FTP but the process was still far from sluggish or painful.

Then, once the upload finished, I received confirmation in my “case listing”. However, the case was not “closed” or marked complete. Rather, it was marked as “open” and the claim status was changed to “pending”.

Even after everything that was done, the process is not automatic and still requires human review. before the registration is finalized.

This is, perhaps, the biggest single blow to the ECO system. that all it really is is a means to same end as the mail-in system. However, rather than mailing your form and sample works in, you get to send them electronically via clunky, error-prone interface that is slower and more confusing than its paper counterparts.

Technical Errors

Something that emerged in this use of the ECO system that was not present during my earlier experiments was a slew of server and Web page errors.

It seemed that, as I went through the system, every other page produced some variation of the “server busy” error. The other sites I was on at the time functioned well, including the main USCO Web site, and the errors seemed to be limited exclusively to anything on the ECO system that required the running of a script.

Given that the ECO system is, technically, in a private beta, this is embarrassing. If they are having issues with server load, they could, theoretically, just reduce the number of people allowed to register for the service until they get caught up.

Unfortunately, they either haven’t done that or did it too late. The system seems to be getting pounded now and, if it moves at all, it does so reluctantly.

The good news is that these slowdowns didn’t affect upload speed significantly and the errors did not cause any data loss. The system was smart enough to pick up where it left off every time.

Still, it made for more than a few “heart stopping” moments.

Conclusions

The premise of the ECO system is that, when compared to the current mail-in system, it is supposed to be faster, cheaper and more reliable. Unfortunately, it fails miserably on two out of three accounts.

Though the system will save you ten dollars plus postage on your registration, you’ll spend more time filling out the forms and put up with a very buggy system in order to make it happen. Though I’m certain later registrations will be easier for me as it should have all of my data stored, there is no excuse for making this system more complicated than the one it is supposed to replace.

However, even with that being said, I will probably find myself using the ECO system in the future, so long as the current registration goes through in a reasonable amount of time. Though I don’t register many works due to the nature of the Web, if I have to do it, this will likely be the way to go.

The reason though has nothing to do with the ECO system itself, but with issues I’ve had in recent months trying to submit deposit copies. Twice now I have had burned CDs ether be destroyed or lost by the USCO. At least with electronic registration, that is not an issue.

However, if this is the system that is supposed to bring the archaic USCO into the 21st century, it is a dismal failure. Between the dated technology that doesn’t work properly, poor usability and a sheer complexity of the process, this system only shows how out of step the USCO is with the modern world.

It is long overdue for the USCO’s place in the copyright landscape to be re-evaluated and changed. The failure of the ECO system to provide a decent registration system only serves as the nail in the coffin of that argument.

The system, in theory, is supposed to make registering your work with the USCO easier, faster and cheaper than the traditional “file by mail” system that the USCO has used for decades.

But how does the system compare with existing services, such as Godaddy’s c-Site and is it enough to save the USCO from becoming a complete dinosaur in the digital age?

Well, last week I received an invite to beta test the system and sought to answer those questions for myself. What I found was an inadequate system that never failed to disappoint.

Obtaining the Invite

Getting the invite to test the system was a relatively painless process. I was on the USCO site for unrelated business and filled out the brief form to request becoming a beta tester. Within 24 hours, I had an email inviting me to join the test and instructions for signing on.

The email gave me instructions to register for an account at a hidden page on the USCO site. The registration was spread across four screens. The first asked me for my name, time zone, username and password. The second asked me to fill in my personal contact information, address, phone, etc. The third had me agree to a terms of service and the fourth was a confirmation of the first three screens.

With the account registered, I could easily log in and see the interface, but I had to confirm the registration before I could actually do anything. Confirming the registration required me to reply to my acceptance email with my username and other information so they could activate the account.

After waiting another day, the account was activated. I was able to log back in and start the registration process. However, it was then that the chinks in the armor began to become very clear.

Going Through the Motions

Once your access to the system is confirmed, you can then begin to go through the motions of registering your work.

When you first log in to your account, you are greeted with the screen below (click for larger screen).

Once you click the “Start a New Registration” screen, you are taken to a page that provides you an overview of the three steps that will follow, filling out the application, making payment and submitting your deposits. You then click the “Start Registration” button and begin the application process.

The application process takes place over a series of eleven steps, starting with the type of work and ending with a review of the submission. The entire time you’re moving through the application process, a box, such as the one to the left, is displayed on the screen showing you where you are in the process.

Each step is relatively short and closely mirrors the information that is entered on the paper forms. Navigation between the steps is handled through a navigation bar displayed above each page’s form.

In addition to allowing you to move back and forward through the steps, the navigation bar allows you to save the registration at any time, letting you to access it through their account management tools. Also, in some sections, it has the ability to “Add Me”, which will fill in your provided information instead of having you retype it.

All totaled, the application process takes about thirty minutes the first time you go through it. Subsequent times, when you’re more comfortable with the format and the steps, can take as little as ten.

Once you have completed your application, you are then taken to a page on Pay.gov, which is a site operated by the United States Treasury. There you are given the opportunity to pay the $35 fee either via checking account or credit card.

Unfortunately, that is where I had to stop. Though my original intention was to register this site using the service, problems and concerns with the registration prevented me from spending the money on the registration.

Issues with the Service

Many of the problems with the eCO service are apparent just by looking at the few screenshots I provided. The submission process is clumsy, the layout is ugly and the language is, in places, very confusing.

It was clearly a system designed for people already very familiar with the copyright registration process and, even though I have successfully registered many things with the USCO, this system left me scratching my head at least a few times.

The system also suffers from some very severe technical issues. For one, the service is incompatible with some browsers. It has only been tested on IE and Netscape 7.2, requires modifications to Firefox settings for it to work in that browser, seems to work with Opera in my testing and completely chokes on Safari. This is unacceptable considering that the entire process is done using almost nothing but HTML and basic JavaScript.

But worse still is the extreme slowness of the service and regular error messages. Several times when I tried to sign on I was told that I was already logged into the system and couldn’t enter it again. Other times, I experienced random, and rather cryptic, server error messages.

Most frustrating of all was that clicking the “Add Me” button, as described above, took the system upwards of a minute to add my data in. Once, it took so long my session timed out before the data was put in.

However, the deal breaker, for me, was the complete and total lack of effective documentation for the service. When I reached the point where they were asking for my credit card number, I realized that I had no idea how to prepare my site for upload.

I knew from reading other reviews that the site would have to be uploaded in a zip file and that there had been hiccups with the upload process, but I had no clue what kind of files it would require me to reformat the site as an RTF, TXT or PDF file. In the past, I’ve submitted HTML documents burned to a disk with no problems, but this system seems to have changed many of the rules.

So, I left the eCO system at the altar, my registration complete save the payment and the upload.

My Thoughts

I’ve been very critical of the USCO over the years I’ve run this site and repeatedly called for its closure or, at the very least, the elimination of the registration requirement.

However, I held out a glimmer of hope that the eCO system might modernize the USCO enough to be practical in the Internet age. Unfortunately, those hopes have been dashed pretty thoroughly.

This is not an update to the USCO, it is just a means for them to accept and process copyright applications more quickly. It only brings the USCO up to date if you assume that the date is 1995.

The eCO system does not take advantage of new technologies such as RSS or AJAX. It is not user-friendly or significantly more cost-effecient. It is not approachable to anyone who has never filed a registration before and, worst of all, it does nothing to make the process of registering a Web site more clear.

In short, it is nothing but fast lane for traditional copyright holders. The RIAA types will enjoy this system greatly and will forgive its flaws because it speeds up the process and saves them money. But bloggers, Webmasters and smaller rightsholders will miss out on the revolution.

This system held so much promise when it was announced. However, it is now just another government failure when trying to adapt copyright law to the Web.

Conclusions

To be fair, we must remember that this system is just a beta. However, as my own experiences in government work tells me, the powers that be don’t beta test until they feel they are very close to a final product. If that is the case, then this is nothing but a colossal failure.

What makes it so embarrassing is that online copyright registration services have existed for years. These services, which have charged a premium to process postal copyright registrations, are, by in large, fast, user-friendly and easy.

Even non-repudiation systems such as Registered Commons and Numly provide a much higher level of convenience, speed and effectiveness. The only thing they lack is any legal authority.

However, it is that legal authority that causes most of the major problems with the eCO. By having to comply with a set of laws that don’t fit neatly with the Internet, the eCO system goes from a painless registration to a cumbersome application of antiquated laws.

The eCO system is an attempt to shoehorn 1978 copyright law into a 2008 copyright reality. It just doesn’t work.

Rating

Out of a ten I have to give the system a three. It is better than no electronic copyright registration system at all, but that is not saying much.