Why is the mail being delayed?
Concerns about anthrax in United States Postal Service facilities in the District of Columbia have caused severe disruptions of postal service to the Copyright Office, and safety measures are being implemented including the possibility of irradiating incoming letters and packages. All mail to ZIP Codes serving the Capitol Hill complex of buildings, of which the Copyright Office is a part, is being delayed.

When did disruption to mail delivery begin?
The Copyright Office has not received mail since October 17.

When will mail delivery resume?
We do not anticipate that mail delivery will resume soon. We have no specific date for the resumption of the mail. Please check back on the Copyright Office website for any changes in the status of the mail delivery.

What will happen to my effective date of registration?
The effective date of registration will be when the Copyright Office actually receives all three elements: a properly completed application form, the appropriate filing fee, and a deposit of the work being registered. On December 4, the Register of Copyrights issued interim regulations dealing with the impact of the disruption in the mail delivery. Please read more about the interim regulations if you have concerns regarding the impact on the effective date of registration that resulted from the disruption to mail delivery.

Can you confirm receipt of my correspondence and registration material?
No. No mail has been received since October 17.

What if I mailed Special Handling requests that have not been received?
If you submitted Special Handling requests through regular mail during this period, you can consider sending them again through a private carrier or coming to the Copyright Office in person with your request. If you do resubmit a Special Handling request, you should tell us that it is a duplicate of a request already submitted and approximately when it was mailed.

Will my deposit of a cassette tape, video, or CD be damaged by Postal Service irradiation?
The Library is working with the Postal Service on this issue and is making every attempt to avoid damage to deposits by irradiation. We do not know if deposits will be damaged. After mail delivery resumes, if we discover that your deposit has been damaged, you will be notified to submit a replacement copy.

Should I send a second copy of my claim and another check?
No. Your mail will be delivered to the Copyright Office when mail delivery resumes.

What if I received a mandatory notice from the Copyright Acquisitions Division requiring deposit within 90 days of receipt of the notice?
Delays in the mail will be taken into account in enforcing the 90-day requirement. To avoid undue delays and additional correspondence from the Copyright Office, you may consider sending your copies through a private or commercial carrier.

How can I stay informed about updates to this situation?
We will provide up-to-date information on our website. You may also call (202) 707-3000 for a recorded message or to speak with an Information Specialist.

Are you by any chance a postal worker or with the copyright office in D.C.?

The reason I ask, is because I received the same information, and checked the website for the Copyright Office. It is also posted there. While I was at my post office last week I mentioned this, and was told mail delivery resumed about a month ago. I do not know which information is correct, but no doubt a quick phone call would confirm either way.

So, trusting that my postal worker was correct, I have been sending my copyrights in. I use a return receipt, and the post office has not said they can't send them. However, even in the best of times it often takes 3-4 weeks to get the return receipt back. Perhaps a phone call is in order.

The following is only opinion, do your own research:

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Originally posted by Ray E. Strode:
Generally speaking if you have songs that are ready to file for copyright there is no reason you can't sent them now.

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That's true, if you send via UPS or Fed Ex.

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Originally posted by Ray E. Strode:Even if they are held up in the mail system because of 911 as soon as they are postmarked at the local post office the copyright date is set even if it takes as much as a year to get back the registration... ...As an added precaution you could have your lyric sheets notarized by a notary public for additional protection.

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Unfortunatly, none of the above is true. The post mark or a notary mark has nothing to do with protecting the legal rights registration provides. The only date that matters is WHEN THE COPYRIGHT OFFICE RECEIVES THE DEPOSIT/FEE/REGISTRATION APPLICATION. They mark the date in their mail room, they DO NOT use the post mark. It says this in the information they have on the web and this has always been the legal standard.

As you probably know, the effective registration date (the date when the copyright office receives the application) is very important to retaining certain legal rights. For many published works, some rights are lost if the work is not registered within 3 months of publication. As they say on the web site, if you have sent in a registration since approx. the beginning of October to now by USPS, that mail is stuck in limbo, and the effective registration date will be when the Copyright Office actually recieves that mail, after delivery resumes. What that means is, that your effective registration date maybe past the 3 month window, and thus certain legal rights are lost unless you file for a change in the effective registration date. You can do that after you receive the registration, if you have reciepts for your mailing. SO KEEP YOUR RECEIPTS AND SEND BY UPS OR FED EX FOR NOW.

Peace.

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Originally posted by Ray E. Strode:
So far I have copyrighted 47 songs before 911. Each time I have logged the date I sent something for copyright. When my registration forms came back the date I sent the forms was the effective date of registration on the form even tho 3 to 5 months had passed. So the copyright office uses the postmark for effective date of registration or if the can't read it then the date it is received in the copyright office.[QUOTE]

I'll concede that may be true, however, I have in my portfolio examples of registrations that have later dates than the post mark. The Copyright Office is VERY CLEAR that the effective date of registration is WHEN THEY RECEIVE all three items (Deposit/Fee/Registation Application). That means they do not have to rely on the post mark.

They are equally clear that the USPS mail disruption (caused by the anthrax scare in October, not by 911) has a very good chance of causing a delay in your effective registration date. From the Copyright Office Web site: "The fact that the mail has been disrupted means that the date of receipt of materials in the Office may be later than it ordinarily would have been. The date the Office receives mail is important, because it determines the effective date of registration of claims to copyright, as well as the date of recordation for transfers, assignments, and other documents. Persons who believe they have been adversely affected by the disruption may wish to follow the procedures outlined in the regulation." That goes on to say in other places that your course of remedy for this is to file a form to change the effective registration date to an earlier date, AFTER you have received back registration, and IF you have mailing receipts or other proof.

It is also clear that certain legal rights are lost if a work is not registered (have an effective registration date) within a certain time period (3 months in some cases) of when it was published.

You can darn bet that music publishers and record labels are sending their items via UPS or Fed Ex at this time. Who would send an item via USPS, knowing they may have to go thru the hassle to file a form to change the registration date when they get the registration back?

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Ray E. Strode:However since everything is in limbo you may want to do something further to protect your songs in case the postmark on your submission is unreadable when your copyrights are finally registered and things get back to normal. In this case having your lyric sheets notarized is probably all that is needed. The Copyright registration is not an all encompassing protection for a song in case someone else wrote it and they can prove it in a court of law.

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I totally agree with you that the registration is not all encompassing if somebody sues YOU for infringement. So having lyrics notorized or the old send the song to yourself (so it has a post mark) trick is a good idea anytime - to prove your claim of when the song was created (hence copyrighted - BUT NOT REGISTERED). My point in all this is that to protect all of YOUR legal rights TO SUE for infringement, it is absolutly imperative to have a registration on file with the Copyright Office. A registration that has a timely effective registration date in regards to when the work was published, etc. Notorizing especially or post marks are not the legal standard here. The legal standard is WHEN THE COPYRIGHT OFFICE RECEIVES THE DEPOSIT/REGISTRATION/FEE. And the Copyright Office has made it very clear that sending something or having sent something since early or mid-October via USPS may effect your registration date. Again, why hassle with that when you can send via UPS or Fed Ex?

The "poor man's copyright" of mailing something to yourself is totally useless and should never be used for any real protection. Think of it logically.. I can mail myself and unsealed empty envelope anytime I want and 10 years later put anything I want inside. It has no real legal value. You COULD notorize that it was sealed etc.. but most people think just sending it to yourself is enough. It isn't.

Also don't forget. The moment you fix your work to a tangible medium.. it has copyright protection. Registration offers additional and different protections, most of all concerning rights to sue and recovering legal fees etc.. It is very important for you all to LEARN the laws and make decisions based on facts. Never take heresay for truth when the specific facts are available directly from the copyright office or via any number of great books such as John Braheny's Craft and Business of Songwriting.

Be careful out there!

I was just trying to suggest that while notorizing or post marks have no value when registering a work (even if the Copyright office uses the post mark as suggested by posters here - they don't have to and the legal standard again is WHEN THE COPY OFFICE RECIEVES THE DEPOSIT - NOT THE POST MARK), it could concievably be useful to have a date when the work was "fixed in a tangable medium" proved by notorizing (but not by mailing to yourself - as Brian pointed out). This MIGHT be useful to defend a lawsuit or as proof of the claim in your registration, but it certainly does not take the place of copyright registration.

ANYWAY, like Brian said, mailing a work to yourself for the post mark has no value, and always register your works.

Ok. I didn't shut up and go away. I called the Copyright Office and I spoke to a real person regarding effective registration dates and post marks, etc. This is what they said:

1) They confirmed my assertion that the law is CLEAR: The effective date of registration is when the Copyright Office RECEIVES ALL THREE ITEMS (Registration/Deposit/Fee) - IT IS NOT THE POSTMARK.

2) They confirmed my earlier statement that items are marked in the Copyright Office mail room with the current date when the items are received in the mail room (thus marking the items with the date received).

Now, this is a help desk person, and sometimes you have to take what they say with a grain of salt, but all this makes sense with what the law states. I cannot explain a poster's experience with the effective registation date when he received his registration back being the date he sent in the registration (this making it appear the Copyright Office is using the post mark for the effective registration date), I can only tell you what the law and the Copyright Office itself says. Maybe if I dig a little deeper I would find that the person who actually records the registration has leeway to use the postmark, but I certainly wouldn't rely on that in the face of what the law says, and it certainly didn't sound like that was the case from my conversation with the Copyright Office.

Now, knowing those facts, in regards to the USPS mail stoppage to the Copyright Office, that would mean that if something was sent since mid-October via USPS, the effective registration date is going to be when the mail is actually finally delivered. Right now USPS mail to the Copyright Office is being gathered someplace but it is not being delivered. That has all sorts of ramifications for published works, and even for unpublished works, it would seem to be
advantageous to have an effective registration date sooner, rather than later.
We need to make our own decisions, but I personally would not send anything via USPS for now until mail delivery is resumed. Not when I can send UPS or Fed Ex. They say 3rd party shipments are generally arriving without delay, just make sure the 3rd party carrier delivers to the Copyright Office zip code.

Now I will really shut up and go away.

Let's not argue about whether this should happen but rather let's accept this needs to happen as soon as possible. Maybe a better idea is start petitions in each state and send those to the congressional members.