Under the 1909 copyright law, works copyrighted in the United States before January 1, 1978, were subject to a renewal system in which the term of copyright was divided into two consecutive 28-year terms. To secure the renewal protection, the claimant had to file a renewal registration within strict time limits. However, since January 1, 2006, all applications for renewal have necessarily related to works which, due to automatic renewal, are already in their renewal terms, making impossible any renewal in the 28th year.

Consequently, the Office issued a notice of a proposed rulemaking to amend its regulations to account for these facts and to clarify certain renewal requirements (72 FR 16306). The Copyright Office has received no opposition to its proposal. Thus the Office is issuing a final rule incorporating the proposed revisions to 37 CFR 202.17. (Read further information.)

Any applications for registration of claims to the renewal term must be filed using the newly revised forms. The previously used forms are obsolete, and the new forms must be used to file renewal claims. The new forms are Form RE for renewal, Form RE/CON for additional information, and Form RE/Addendum for works not registered during the original term.