The United States is trying to make copyright registration fit how visual artists actually work. On 19 October 2026, the House introduced H.R.10843, the Visual Artists Copyright Reform Act of 2026 (VACRA), now listed on the US Copyright Office's legislative-developments page. To be clear: this is still a bill, referred to the House Judiciary Committee — not an in-force registration rule.
According to the bill text published on GovInfo, the core measures are:
- Bulk registration: one natural-person author may register up to 3,000 photographs with a single application and a single fee; the Copyright Office may raise that cap as technology develops.
- Deferred registration and examination: materials can be filed first and registered later (the registration date being when materials are submitted), and examination can be requested later, for a fee, during the copyright term; for US Customs (CBP) enforcement, a pending deferred application counts as a filed registration application.
- Third-party photo deposit registries: the Copyright Office would certify qualifying third-party registries, which must keep works for the copyright term, maintain author and owner information and offer a free searchable database; depositing with a certified registry satisfies the statutory deposit requirement.
- Fee reform: the deferred-registration fee would be no more than half a standard application fee, with reduced fees for individual authors and small businesses, plus annual or periodic registration subscriptions — no per-work application fee for filings made during a subscription.
The bill was introduced by Representative Ben Cline and co-sponsored by Representative Sydney Kamlager-Dove, making it bipartisan. The pain point is concrete: photographers and other visual artists produce works in bulk, and registering each one promptly is costly and impractical.
J&C notes that this is still a bill, not an in-force registration rule. If it passes, the details — how bulk registration works, the certification standards for third-party registries, and the fee levels — would still be set by the Copyright Office within the bill's deadlines (some rules within 180 days). Creators with large photo portfolios in the US can start tracking the bill and mapping which works would suit bulk or deferred registration, to move quickly once rules take effect.
Source: www.copyright.gov | www.govinfo.gov
