Statement of Marybeth Peters The Register of Copyrights before the Subcommittee on Legislative Appropriations Committee on Appropriations United States House of Representatives Fiscal Year 2002 Budget Request June 26, 2001 Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee: Thank you for the opportunity to present the Copyright Office budget request for fiscal year 2002. We seek the funding necessary to permit the Copyright Office to administer the nation's copyright law and provide expert policy assistance to Congress and the Executive Branch so that the nation maintains a strong and effective copyright system - one that serves both owners and users of copyrighted works. I would like to note at the outset that our budget request has been revised to some extent from our original submission to take into account important planning and public service improvement activities in which we are now engaged. As reported in the Librarian's May 14, 2001 reprogramming letter to the committee, the Copyright Office is withdrawing the CORDS Full Large-Scale Production request which lowers our appropriations request for Fiscal Year 2002 by $2,621,185 and 13 FTEs. -2 Fiscal Year 2002 Request Summary To enable us to fully serve Congress and the American people, it is critical that the Office's net - appropriation be increased from $9.2 million to $12.8 million $1 million less than the fiscal 1999 net appropriation of $13,771,000. We have growing policy support requirements to Congress and the Executive Branch, as well as a growing regulatory workload from passage of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, that require adequate resources. The Office is requesting $12,836,815 in net appropriations and $21,880,000 in offsetting collections authority. This represents a $3,668,843 million net appropriation increase over the fiscal 2001 net appropriation of $9,167,972. The increase is needed to preserve the No-Year account from a further reduction and to fund $1,668,843 for mandatories and price level changes. The Copyright Office request for its Offsetting Collections Authority represents a decrease of $1,620,000 from $23,500,000 to $21,880,000. The decrease is based on projected annual revenue receipts of $21,500,000 and expending $380,000 from the Copyright Office No-Year account. The Copyright Office believes that the fees collected from the public that are in the No-Year account should be retained and reinvested into providing improved services for the copyright community. As such, we strongly urge the Congress to approve the retention of the No-Year account funds for BPR implementation and information technology improvements. Approximately two-thirds of the Copyright Office budget is funded by fee receipts, primarily fees paid for registering copyrighted works in the Office. In July 1999, we implemented a new fee schedule which raised our basic registration fee by 50%, from $20 to $30. This fee increase has resulted in fewer copyright The policy and regulatory functions of the Office- activities benefitting the nation as a whole instead of providing a specific service to an individual or organization – are funded by net appropriations. These activities include support to the Congress and Executive branch agencies, legal and regulatory work under the Copyright Act, and public education efforts. Major Copyright Office Initiatives The Copyright Office has two very important, closely-aligned, initiatives now underway. Both initiatives- information technology planning and business process reengineering - will shape the Copyright Office's future and its service to the American people. Just as the copyright law has had to adjust to technological changes, our daily business operations and processes are challenged in similar ways. 1. Information Technology We have begun a major reassessment and planning effort regarding our information technology (IT) systems. The Copyright Office relies on the collection, processing, storage and presentation of information to fulfill its duties under the U.S. Copyright Act. Information processing and products are critical in the registration of claims to copyright, the recordation of documents pertaining to copyrighted works, statutory licenses, and the Office's responsibilities as an agency of public record. Access to information is also the basis for the substantive policy and regulatory work the Office performs for the U.S. Congress and the executive branch. Currently, the Copyright Office has more than 20 separate information systems. For the most part, they have been developed separately and are not supportive of full information sharing and integration. Some Two principal factors will shape Copyright Office IT planning in the next few years. First, in order to fully serve our customers, the Office needs to have its current public services available online to the greatest extent possible. Second, last month we made a decision on the business process reengineering (BPR) option we will pursue and will complete a BPR implementation plan this summer. This effort will result in significant changes to our current processes, organization, and facilities. In addition, the changes will rely heavily on the use of new technology, all of which will result in more effective and timely service to our customers. Our original direction on reengineering was to work within the confines of our existing IT structure. The results of our reengineering work have shown us that we need to accelerate the Office's use of new technology, not only for the processes impacted by reengineering, but for the entire Office. We need to undertake a fundamental transformation in our public services: from paper and hard-copy based processing to primarily electronic processing. Our processes must change from traditional manual capabilities to IT enabled functions. This year, through our Copyright Office Electronic Registration, Recordation and Deposit System (CORDS), we will electronically receive about 30,000 digital works for registration. This is about 5 percent of our total registrations. Now we need to broaden our IT approach so that electronic receipt and processing becomes the primary way we register works. We will encourage that works submitted for registration be submitted online. Once they are submitted, we will use technology to a much greater extent than we have, to process them quickly and ensure a timely public record. This not only helps the Copyright Office provide better public services, but is also is a key component -5 collections through copyright registration and through the mandatory deposit provisions of section 407 of the copyright law. Our newly-formed Copyright Office Information Systems Working Group has just begun its work. So that this critical initial planning can be completed and specific resource requirements identified, I am requesting a modification in our Fiscal Year 2002 request. Until we revise our overall IT strategy to respond to our new business processes, I believe we should not proceed with funding for the CORDS Full Large-Scale Production System, as requested in our original submission. We do need to maintain the CORDS system so that we can continue to provide an electronic registration option for those now using it and others who wish to. I expect that usage of the current CORDS system will increase in terms of the number of users and quantity and types of works registered. Yet, we do not want to accelerate further development of CORDS until we establish an overall electronic delivery of services strategy. As discussed in the Librarian's recent reprogramming letter for the Copyright Office, I request that the Office proceed as follows: Permanently reprogram $620,000 savings from Marking and Tagging in Fiscal Year 2001 to Information Technology Planning and Development. In the current fiscal year, these funds would be used to conduct a requirements analysis which will provide us with an IT strategy that: supports reengineering, redevelops our aging systems and expands the electronic delivery of our public services. (Our Marking and Tagging requirements will continue to be met and |