Research Services Overview

Anyone can request additional certificates of copyright registration by writing to the Copyright Office. The additional certificate has the same legal or evidentiary effect as the original certificate. The additional certificate contains the seal and signature of the Register of Copyrights and needs no further certification.

Your request for an additional certificate should include:

1. the title of the copyrighted work;
2. the registration number;
3. the year of registration or publication;
4. any other information needed to identify the registration; and
5. the correct fee. For current fees, visit the Copyright Office website, write the office, or call 1-877-476-0778 (toll-free).

Note: If you don’t know the registration number of the copyrighted work involved, request a search for the number before requesting an additional certificate.

Copies of Applications can be certified or uncertified and are usually requested to confirm submission of copyrighted material.

All requests for copies of deposits should be submitted to the Records Research and Certification Division. The Copyright Office does not retain all works deposited for copyright registration. The Office will provide certified or uncertified copies of published or unpublished works deposited in connection with a copyright registration and held in the Office’s custody only when one of the following three conditions has been met:

1. Written authorization is received from the copyright claimant of record or the owner of any of the exclusive rights in the copyright, as long as this ownership can be demonstrated by written documentation of the transfer of ownership. If the transfer of the copyright is recorded in the Copyright Office, please include, if possible, the volume and page numbers and approximate year of recordation. Without that information, a search of the Copyright Office files will be necessary, and a search fee will be required.
2. The Copyright Office Litigation Statement Form is completed and received from an attorney or authorized representative in connection with litigation, actual or prospective, involving the copyrighted work. The following information must be included in such a request: (a) the names of all parties involved and the nature of the controversy, and (b) the name of the court in which the actual case is pending. In the case of a prospective proceeding, the requestor must give a full statement of the facts of controversy in which the copyrighted work is involved, attach any letter or other document that supports the claim that litigation may be instituted, and make satisfactory assurance that the requested reproduction will be used only in connection with the specified litigation. Contact the Records Research and Certification Division for a Litigation Statement Form. This form must be used. No substitute will be permitted. The form must contain a signature and all information requested for the Copyright Office to process a request. The Office will accept either handwritten or electronic signatures.
3. A court order is issued for a reproduction of a deposited article, facsimile, or identifying portion of a work that is the subject of litigation in its jurisdiction. The order must be issued by a court having jurisdiction over a case in which the copy is to be submitted as evidence.

A request for copies of works deposited in connection with a copyright claim should be accompanied by whatever material is necessary to show that one of the three conditions given above has been met.

Nature of Deposit Copies

When you order a copy of a work deposited in connection with a copyright claim, the Records Research and Certification Division will supply a reproduction of one of the following, depending upon the actual deposit:

1. the deposited work;
2. any identifying material submitted in lieu of the original work; or
3. a reproduction of any facsimile that the Copyright Office is required by law to retain when the deposited article has been transferred to the Library of Congress.

If you request a reproduction of a deposit not retained under the control of the Copyright Office, the Office will inform you of this fact. In the event that a deposit was selected for the Library of Congress collections, you can search the collections at www.loc.gov or send an email inquiry to a librarian at www.loc.gov/rr/askalib/ask-contactus.html.

If you request a reproduction of a phonorecord, such as an audiotape, cassette, CD, or diskette, in which either a sound recording or the underlying musical, dramatic, or literary work is embodied, the Copyright Office will provide proximate reproduction. Because of the characteristics of available sound reproduction, all frequencies contained in the original phonorecord may not be reproduced.

The Copyright Office will provide the title and the registration number of the phonorecord. In response to a specific request, the Copyright Office will provide reproductions of any printed or other visually perceptible material deposited with the phonorecord.

Correspondence related to copyright registrations and renewals is a service we provide and is the written communication between the copyright Office and the claimant pertaining to submitted material, usually requested in cases of litigation.

When requesting a recorded document one will receive a photocopy of the recordation of transfers and/or other documents pertaining to a copyright.

Certificate of recordation is a certificate originally processed by the Recordation Section. A reproduction of the certificate of recordation can be certified or uncertified.

You can inspect (a) completed records and indexes related to a registration or a recorded document and (b) copies or identifying material deposited in connection with a completed registration or rejection in the Records Research and Certification Division. Some of these materials are stored outside the Copyright Office; contact section staff to determine how long it will take to retrieve the requested materials. Inspection hours are Monday through Friday, 8:30 am to 5:00 pm, eastern time, except federal holidays and are prearranged.

A Copyright Office search report is limited to registrations that have already been cataloged and includes as much information as we are able to find by searching our indexes and catalogs in response to the information we are furnished. A search report is an objective statement of the results of our search in the appropriate Copyright Office records. We cannot offer interpretations of our findings, nor can we make comparisons between deposit copies to determine similarity. Nothing in a search report should be considered as expressing or implying any opinion by the Copyright Office on questions involving the validity of a copyright, the sufficiency of compliance with legal requirements, the possibility of infringement, or the ownership of rights.