Page:Compendium of US Copyright Office Practices (1973).pdf/480

S-125 No. 35

POSITION OF THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE ON COMPUTER PROGRAMS OF DOMESTIC ORIGIN FIRST PUBLISHED IN THE FORM OF MACHINE READABLE TAPE OR MACHINE PUNCHED CARD

In accordance with a decision made in April 1964, the Copyright Office will accept computer programs for registration as "books" in Class A, provided they contain the requisite amount of authorship and meet the other registration requirements.

Where a program is first published in the form of punched cards or on magnetic tape, the work does not have "pages; II this raises the question of compliance with the requirement that the notice on a "book" appear either on the title page or the page immediately following the title page. While this provision cannot be ignored, it should not be given an unreasonably strict construction. The following general guidelines should govern these cases.

Our present practice requires a print-out of the entire program to accompany the deposit copies where first publication was in a form that cannot be perceived visually or read by humans. As a general rule, the position of the notice should be considered acceptable if it appears on the same page or fold of the print-out as the title of the work. It the notice appears on a page or fold other than that on which the title appears, the nature of the material intervening between the title and the notice should be taken into con­sideration in determining whether the position of the notice is acceptable. If all, or a part of the substantive body of the work intervenes so that it would be unreasonable to conclude that the notice appeared "on the title page immediately following," registration should be refused.

Where the deposit copies consist of a set of :machine punched cards that also bear printed material, a single copyright notice located in an acceptable position will suffice to permit registration of the set. A single card contains only a few words and should not necessarily be equated with a "page." Consequently, registration should not be refused if the copyright notice does not appear on the same card or the card immediately following the one bearing the title. Where several cards intervene between the title card and the card containing the notice, again the nature of the material reproduced on the intervening cards