Final Rule Adopted to Remove Personally Identifiable Information from Registration Records
Issue No. 652 - February 2, 2017

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The U.S. Copyright Office issued a final rule to allow authors and claimants to replace in or remove from the Office’s online registration catalog personally identifiable information (PII). This rule allows authors, claimants, or their authorized representatives to pay a fee and request the removal of certain PII requested by the Office and collected on registration applications, such as names, home addresses, or personal phone numbers. The PII will be removed from the Office’s Internet-accessible public catalog but retained in the Office’s offline records as required by law. The rule also codifies an existing practice that removes extraneous PII free of charge, such as driver’s license numbers, social security numbers, banking information, and credit card information, whether by the Office’s own volition or upon request by authors, claimants, or their authorized representatives.

The final rule is available in the Federal Register 82 (PDF, 238 KB).