2310.8 Contesting or Withdrawing a Notice of Termination
When a party serves a notice of termination on a grantee and records the notice with the U.S. Copyright Office, the grantee may respond by sending a letter or other written response that challenges the sufficiency of the notice. The Office refers to this type of document as a “counter notice.”
On occasion, the party that served a notice of termination subsequently enters into a written agreement with the grantee whereby the terminating party expressly agrees to withdraw the notice of termination. The Office refers to this type of document as a “withdrawal.”
A counter notice or a withdrawal may be recorded under Section 205 (A) of the Copyright Act as a document pertaining to copyright, provided that the following requirements have been met:
• The document is legible.
• The document is complete.
• The document bears the actual signature or an acceptable reproduction of the actual signature of the person or persons who executed it.
• The document is submitted together with the correct filing fee.
See 17 U.S.C. § 205 (A); 37 C.F.R. § 201.4 (C).
The legibility, completeness, signature, and filing fee requirements are discussed in more detail in Sections 2309.8 through 2309.11. If a document does not comply with these requirements, the recordation specialist may communicate with the remitter or may refuse to record the document.
The remitter should submit a signed copy of the document to the following address together with the appropriate filing fee:
U.S. Copyright Office Notices of Termination
P.O. Box 71537
Washington, DC 20024-1537
For information concerning the procedure for calculating the filing fee, see Section 2310.7 (D).
When preparing a counter notice or a withdrawal, parties are strongly encouraged to include the title(s) and registration number(s) (if any) of the works that are subject to the notice of termination. In addition, parties are encouraged to attach a copy of the notice of termination to the document, and if the notice has been recorded with the Office, to include the identifying number that the Office assigned to that notice (if any). In such cases, the recordation specialist will include the title(s), registration number(s), and identifying number for the notice in the online public record for the counter notice or the withdrawal. In addition, the specialist may add a note to the record, such as: “[Counter notice to / withdrawal of] notice of termination filed under [identifying number], recorded on [date].”