The United States Copyright Office is moving toward its first major fee increase since 2020, with new registration and recordation rates expected to take effect in mid-November unless Congress intervenes during a 120-day review window. Rights holders have a limited window to file at current rates, and catalog owners are being urged to identify unregistered works before costs rise.
Proposed fee changes#
The U.S. Copyright Office (USCO) has moderated some of its steepest initial increases for musical works in response to public comments, but not for sound recordings. The increases are intended to recover more of the costs of providing registration and recordation services, which the office attributes to inflation, labor expenses, and modernization work.
Key fee changes include:
- Standard Application: $65 to $85, covering a single work or a group of works sharing the same author, owner, and release date, such as all sound recordings or compositions on an album.
- Group registration for an album (GRAM): $65 to $130, covering up to 20 recordings from an album plus related photographs, artwork, and liner notes.
- Electronic recordation base fee: $95 to $215, for recording a document such as an assignment or transfer of ownership.
- Expedited handling: $800 to $1,100, in addition to the application fee.
Recordation costs affect labels, publishers, funds, and buyers working through catalog acquisitions, where recording a transfer can be central to establishing a clean public ownership record. Expedited handling creates a higher-cost option for rights holders that delay registration until a dispute, closing, licensing negotiation, or litigation deadline is already underway. For labels and catalog owners, the decision is not necessarily whether to register everything immediately, but to identify the masters, compositions, and rights transfers that carry the highest enforcement and commercial value before these costs increase.
Legal exposure and registration timing#
Warner Music Group (WMG) sued cookie chain Crumbl over 159 recordings and compositions used in TikTok and Instagram promotions, initially seeking statutory damages of up to $150,000 for each infringed work. In Germany, collecting society GEMA won a Munich Regional Court ruling against artificial intelligence (AI) music generator Suno, with the court ordering Suno to disclose revenue and pay damages after finding it liable for alleged unauthorized training and output conduct involving GEMA-represented works. Suno is expected to appeal.
More than 1,800 artists are supporting related class-action lawsuits against Suno and Udio in the United States. Separately, Round Hill Music has filed copyright infringement lawsuits against Suno and Anthropic in the U.S. District Court in California. Round Hill Music says it initially identified 500 ‘bell-weather’ musical compositions, but may need to amend the case to include 10,000 or more compositions and sound recordings, with statutory damages potentially exceeding $1 billion.
The USCO’s examination process can take months, which makes reactive registration a weak strategy when a dispute has already surfaced. Registering before infringement begins, or within three months of a work’s first publication, generally preserves eligibility for statutory damages and attorney’s fees. Registration after infringement may still support a claim, but it can substantially narrow what a rights holder can recover.
Cosynd registration window#
Cosynd, a copyright registration platform, says rights holders that provide catalog data by September 10 can have filings submitted under the existing fee structure through its bulk registration capability. The company states it has supported due diligence in more than $500 million of catalog M&A activity and has worked alongside law firms involved in several ongoing AI-related suits, providing registration and ownership documentation.
Cosynd states it protects millions of assets across more than 160 countries. Its listed music clients include:
- American Association of Independent Music (A2IM)
- Amuse
- Beggars Group
- Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI)
- CD Baby
- Create Music Group
- EMPIRE
- Nettwerk Music Group
- OpenPlay Connect
- The Royalty Network
- Secretly Group
- SoundCloud
- Symphonic Distribution
- Too Lost
Its work with news and media publishers has grown over two years, and its media clients include Forbes, USA Today, The Atlantic, Politico, and Condé Nast. Cosynd reports that its protected content across music and media reaches more than 3 billion people daily.
