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Originally Posted by efindel
Well, that didn't take long. The Library of Congress, if a work has not been deposited, can contact the publisher and request their two copies. If the two copies are not delivered to them within three months of the request, the publisher can be fined $250. An additional $2500 can be fined if the violation is found to be willful or flagrant.
( information from http://www.eshieldkret.com/copyright/deposit.shtml ) |
Yep. No penalties unless they demand copies & you don't provide them within a few months.
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Since the deposit requirement is for the "best edition", the only way that I can think of that someone could get caught out by this would be if the "best edition" was made in such a way that it wouldn't be possible to recreate it and deliver it in three months,
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There's an exemption for copies that are too expensive or otherwise troublesome to deliver. (If you make twenty copies of a solid-gold sculpture with ruby accents, you don't have to give one of them to the library of congress.) Also, less than five copies are exempt--so unique works of art like portraits don't have to be turned in.
The rule isn't intended to be onerous; it's to keep a usable archive of creative works. The problem is that when the rule was written, only a fairly small fraction of copyrightable works were "published," and most of those were registered. Now, every corner café publishes its menus as trifold pamphlets and hands them out to customers. The law, as written, makes no sense anymore.