About This Infernal Place

Like a prison sentence stretching over 150 years, the Copyright Office has remained trapped in the basement of American bureaucracy, watching the Trademark Office get all the attention, the windows, the venture capital lunches, and the applicants who shower regularly.

Since 1870, Copyright employees have survived endless exposure to unpublished manuscripts, screenplays so bad many fail before they arrive here, “The Next Star Wars,” and men named Gary demanding immediate registration of songs recorded inside a Honda Civic in a Walmart parking lot.

(Nothing good ever happens in Walmart parking lots.)

Meanwhile, Trademark Office employees stroll around discussing billion-dollar brands, luxury licensing deals, and international commerce while we Copyright clerks, (the Oompa Loompas of IP) spend eleven hours debating whether “Zombie Shark Lawyer IV” contains sufficient originality to avoid merger doctrine.

For over a century, Copyright Office workers have been forced to explain that:

• Ideas are not protected, only expression;
• Fair use does not mean “Only YouTube” (nor does it mean Fred’s Wife Carl!);
• Registration is not legally required for copyright to exist (so give us a break);
• chain of title actually matters (Particularly before you get married William!);
• and no, putting “NO COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT INTENDED” under a TikTok does not create immunity under federal law.

This Office examines hundreds of thousands of applications annually. So many that our local Home Depot is usually sold out of rope and cinderblocks by March. Many were apparently written during severe head trauma.

Employees reportedly suffer acute psychological damage after repeated exposure to: “Can I copyright my vibe?” “How much copyright do I get?” and “I mailed it to myself so now it’s patented.”

While the Copyright Office is forced to handle all manner of pride-fueled disaster like statutory licenses, Section 512 disputes, termination rights, deposit copies, and supplementary registrations, those sons of bitches at the Trademark office get to point to a swoosh on a sneaker that’s already been approved 40 years ago, stamp APPROVED on a piece of paper, and go to lunch.

Which reminds me, last summer I saw what looked like an approved stamp on my daughter’s… you know if I find out… God I Hate Those Trademark Guys… but I digress.

Sources inside the Office say morale collapsed completely after a visiting USPTO employee referred to Copyright as, “The sad basement where creativity goes to die.”

Well the joke’s on you, logo bozo —
we don’t even have a basement.