US Copyright Office Wants to Increase Cost to Register Photos by 55%; PetaPixel, May 5, 2026

JARON SCHNEIDER, PetaPixel; US Copyright Office Wants to Increase Cost to Register Photos by 55%

"The US Copyright Office has proposed a substantial increase to the cost to register photos, citing rising costs and inflation. It argues the cost is still negligible, but critics say the Office is out of touch with reality.

In March, the Office issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) where it suggested substantial increases to its fees, including increases of more than 50% for group registration of photographs and approximately 268% for updates to news websites. 

“The Office has determined that fees should be raised an average of 43% to account for increases in the cost of providing services. This reflects both historic inflation since the last fee study and anticipated inflation over the next three years,” the NPRM states. “The Office estimates that revenues generated by these proposed fees would be roughly $51 million per year over the next five years (compared to the current schedule’s projected $41 million per year), and would achieve approximately 53% projected cost recovery during the first year of implementation.”"

Copyright Office Launches Digitized Copyright Historical Record Books Collection; U.S. Copyright Office, February 7, 2022

U.S. Copyright Office; Copyright Office Launches Digitized Copyright Historical Record Books Collection

"The Copyright Office today launched the first release of the digitized Copyright Historical Record Books Collection. “The Copyright Office holds the world’s most comprehensive collection of records of copyright ownership,” said Register of Copyrights Shira Perlmutter. “Today’s release of the first batch of our digitized historical record books will ensure that these records are preserved for future research and that anyone can access them from anywhere.”

This collection is a preview of digitized versions of historical record books that the Office plans to incorporate into its Copyright Public Record System (CPRS), currently in public pilot. The collection will eventually include images of copyright applications and other records bound in books dating from 1870 to 1977. This first release includes 500 record books containing registration applications for books from 1969 to 1977, with a majority of the record books being the most recent volumes from 1975 to 1977. The collection is being digitized using the Copyright Office’s internal administrative classification system in reverse chronological order. There will be periodic updates as record books are digitized and added to the collection."