Group Registration of Two-Dimensional Artwork

<RULE> LIBRARY OF CONGRESS <SUBAGY>Copyright Office</SUBAGY> <CFR>37 CFR Parts 201, 202</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. 2024-2]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Group Registration of Two-Dimensional Artwork</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> U.S. Copyright Office, Library of Congress. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The U.S. Copyright Office is creating a new group registration option for two-dimensional artwork. This option will allow applicants to register up to twenty works published within one calendar year by submitting a single online application with a digital deposit copy of each work. The Office will examine each work to determine if it contains a sufficient amount of creative pictorial or graphic authorship. If the Office registers the claim, the registration will cover each artwork in the group as a separate work of authorship. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Effective February 17, 2026. </EFFDATE> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Rhea Efthimiadis, Assistant to the General Counsel, by email at <E T="03">meft@copyright.gov,</E> or by telephone at 202-707-8350. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1"> I. Background  <E T="51">1</E> <FTREF/> </HD> <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  Comments received in response to the notice of proposed rulemaking are referenced by party name (abbreviated where appropriate) followed by “Comments.” Additionally, this document references a number of prior rulemakings in which commenters have requested group registration, including: 80 FR 23054 (Apr. 24, 2015) (“Visual Works NOI”); 81 FR 86643 (Dec. 1, 2016) (“Group Photographs NPRM”); 83 FR 24054 (May 24, 2018) (“2019 Fee Study NPRM”); 83 FR 52336 (Oct. 17, 2018) (“Registration Modernization NOI”); and 86 FR 70540 (Dec. 10, 2021) (“Deferred Registration Examination Study NOI”). </FTNT> The Copyright Act authorizes the Register of Copyrights to specify by regulation the administrative classes of works available for the purpose of registration and the deposit required for each class. <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> The Act also gives the Register the discretion to allow registration of groups of related works with one application and filing fee. <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> Pursuant to her authority to establish group registration options, the Register has issued regulations permitting group registrations for several types of works, including news websites, newspapers, newsletters and serials, unpublished and published photographs, contributions to periodicals, secure test items, works on an album of music, short online literary works, and database updates. <SU>4</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>  17 U.S.C. 408(c)(1). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>   <E T="03">Id.</E> </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>4</SU>  37 CFR 202.3(b)(5), 202.4(c)-(k), (m), (o). </FTNT> The Office initiated this rulemaking after receiving requests from stakeholders to establish a new group registration option for two-dimensional artwork. <SU>5</SU> <FTREF/> Stakeholder groups representing artists identified several common features of two-dimensional artwork, including its distinct vulnerability to downstream infringement  <SU>6</SU> <FTREF/> and the significant number of works some artists produce each year. <SU>7</SU> <FTREF/> Stakeholders also stated that, despite infringement concerns, most artists do not engage with the Office's registration system due to the cost of registering individual works relative to their potential revenue, the lack of time and resources necessary to register multiple individual works, and unfamiliarity or difficulty with the registration process. <SU>8</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>5</SU>  Copyright Alliance, Comments in Response to Deferred Registration Examination Study NOI, at 31 (Jan. 24, 2022) (urging the Office to create “a group registration option for illustrations”); Coalition of Visual Artists (“Coalition”), Comments in Response to 2019 Fee Study NPRM, at 35 (May 24, 2018) (“We believe that the current [Group Registration of Published Photographs (“GRPPH”)] and [Group Registration of Unpublished Photographs] group registrations should be expanded to include all such two-dimensional visual works, including without limitation, illustrations, graphic art, video clips, textile arts or visual art in any medium.”); Coalition, Comments in Response to Group Photographs NPRM, at 60 (Jan. 30, 2017) (asking the Office to “[a]llow group registration for all two-dimensional artworks (visual works)”); Graphic Artists Guild, Comments in Response to Visual Works NOI, at 9 (July 20, 2015) (requesting “a new ruling to allow Group registration for illustration and graphic design; for all visual works, not just photographs”); Ass'n of Med. Illustrators (“AMI”), Comments in Response to Registration Modernization NOI, at 9 (Jan. 15, 2019) (“[AMI] wishes to emphasize that the option of group registration for multiple published images for a single, reasonable fee should be available for works of visual art . . . .”); Shaftel & Schmelzer, Comments in Response to Registration Modernization NOI, at 30-31 (Jan. 11, 2019) (“The Graphic Artists Guild has been on record to the Copyright Office asking to include illustration and graphic art in the Group registration category since 1999; at every Roundtable discussion, annual meeting, and nearly every NOI comment letter for the last 20 years.” (footnote omitted)). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>6</SU>  Downstream infringement involves the unauthorized use of copyrighted material by companies or individuals further removed from the artist-to-client relationship. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>7</SU>  Group Registration of Two-Dimensional Artwork, 89 FR 11789, 11789-90 (Feb. 15, 2024) (“NPRM”). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>8</SU>   <E T="03">Id.</E> at 11790. Multiple commenters echoed these concerns. <E T="03">See, e.g.,</E> Coalition Comments at 31; Artists Rights Society Comment at 3; Copyright Alliance Comments at 3. </FTNT> On February 15, 2024, the Office published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“NPRM”) to establish a new group registration option for two-dimensional artwork, recognizing the challenges facing artists and a “legitimate need” for a new group registration option. <SU>9</SU> <FTREF/> The NPRM proposed allowing an applicant to register a group of up to ten works published within a thirty-day time period by submitting a single online application with a digital deposit copy of each work. Each work included would have to be a single two-dimensional pictorial or graphic work, such as a painting, sketch, or character artwork; three-dimensional works, works consisting of multiple images, and architectural works or technical drawings would not be eligible for this group registration option. The proposed rule stated that the Office would examine each work to determine if it contains a sufficient amount of creative pictorial or graphic authorship for copyright protection. If registered, each artwork would be considered a separate work of authorship. The rule also included a requirement that each work in the group be created by the same author, who is also the copyright claimant for each work. Finally, applicants would be required to identify the title and publication date for each work, and to submit their claims through the online copyright registration system, using an application specific to this group registration option. <FTNT> <SU>9</SU>  NPRM at 11789. </FTNT> The Office received fourteen comments in response to the NPRM. Almost all commenters supported the Office's proposal to create the new group registration option. <SU>10</SU> <FTREF/> Some requested modifications to the rule, and three expressly conditioned their support on substantive changes, which would substantially change the rule's scope. <SU>11</SU> <FTREF/> In general, commenters proposed expanding eligibility: increasing the number of works that can be included, lengthening the time period during which all works within the application must be published (and clarifying the publication dates), and permitting the inclusion of additional types of works. Some commenters proposed including three-dimensional works; others proposed permitting works by joint authors, and revising the works made for hire and author/claimant requirements. Several commenters also proposed alternative procedures for amending or annotating the submitted registration record; adjusting the filing fee; and using an alternative application form. Finally, one commenter suggested the Office permit applicants to “choose the name for their group of works being registered.”  <SU>12</SU> <FTREF/> The Office has reviewed and carefully considered each of the comments. <FTNT> <SU>10</SU>   <E T="03">See generally</E> Am. Intell. Prop. L. Ass'n (“AIPLA”) Comments; Jason Aquilino Comments; Artists Rights Society Comments; AMI Comments; Chris Faircloth Comments; Elizabeth Townsend Gard et al. Comments; Kernochan Center Comments; Nat'l Soc'y of Ent. & Arts Laws. (“NSEAL”) Comments; Damian P Comments. One commenter took no position on the NPRM's primary focus. <E T="03">See</E> Am. Ass'n of Indep. Music & Recording Indus. Ass'n of Am., Inc. (“A2IM & RIAA”) Comments at 2 (“Commenters express no position on the primary focus of the NPRM—whether the Office should create a new group registration option for two-dimensional artwork—or on the details of how such an option would or should be implemented.”). The Office also received one terse anonymous comment. <E T="03">See</E> Anonymous Comments (“[T]errible”). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>11</SU>   <E T="03">See generally</E> Coalition Comments; Copyright Alliance Comments; Joshua Kaufman Comments. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>12</SU>  Coalition Comments at 21. </FTNT> The final rule adopts the p ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 57k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━