Brief history of the UK Copyright Service

In early 1999 the UK Copyright Service was conceived as a result of concerns about the quality of copyright evidence and a general lack of direct government provision.

Although at that time Stationers’ Hall was regarded as the UK’s central copyright registration office, it was felt that significant improvements could be made. The registration facility provided by Stationers’ Hall was in fact closed in February 2000.

Following a 15 month period of legal consultations, planning and development, including input from a range of legal and business specialists, the UKCS officially opened its doors in April 2000. Since then it has taken up the role of providing a centre for intellectual property registration in the UK.

The UKCS grew rapidly between 2000 and 2004, and over this period also received growing interest from international copyright owners. In the summer of 2003 a significant investment and infrastructure development programme was initiated and this lead to the creation of Copyright Witness Limited in April 2004.

Due to increasing internationalisation, and harmonisation of universal concepts of copyright, governed by international treaties and conventions, it was now appropriate that the service developed to a fully international level. The change of company name and status was designed to encompass its growing international obligations, and provide a platform to service authors on a more integrated worldwide level. This brought benefits to both the UK Copyright Service and its clients in the future, as the service continued to develop.

To provide continuity and minimise confusion, the UK Copyright Service (UKCS) name is retained by Copyright Witness Limited primarily for its UK clients whilst the Copyright Witness brand focuses on international copyright owners.

In 2004, the new role of ‘Director of Software Engineering’ was appointed to Mr Barry Pearce. His experience of developing systems for companies such as Sophos, British Aerospace, Lucent Technologies, DHL and PowerGen was a key factor in his appointment, and he has since taken the lead role in a three stage program of updating and replacing systems and infrastructure across the organisation.

Stage one, which was completed in June 2004, moved all company systems to dedicated self hosted servers, ensuring the very best quality and security for our clients and site visitors. It also heralded the launch of a new web site, which allowed client to access forms and documents previously only available by post.

Stage two, completed in 2005, saw the launch of new, high security, online registration facilities offering virtually unlimited upload sizes. It also saw the launch of the registration update facility that provides an economical option for clients with work that is subject to a high rate of change, (for example web developers). We also added a number of additional servers to our secure online network to support our updated services, provide additional bandwidth, and ensure very high reliability.

Throughout 2006, we continued to improve application processing times, and significantly extended the range of information available on the website.

February 2007 saw the launch of online registration renewals, (this was previously only available by postal reminder), and has also added online ordering for replacement certificates, registration notice labels and duplicate works. There was also a ‘face lift’ to the website, along with a few more information and advice pages. We also improve the online registration systems, by providing additional information, streamlining the application process and introducing 3D security checks for added payment security.

Stage three, started in January 2008 and currently ongoing, is a three year project to upgrade all existing back-office systems and integrate extra features and functionality into our client accessible systems.

We are continually reviewing our existing services to seek improvement where we can.

Throughout 2009 and 2010 our development team are continuing an extensive project to update our back-office systems and provide further web based facilities for clients. There are also future plans to provide >2GB file uploads.

Since the outset, the aim has remained simple and clear:

‘To provide secure, affordable and effective independent evidence of copyright’

This statement still forms the cornerstone of our philosophy today, and thousands of individuals and companies across the globe continue to benefit from the real peace of mind that comes from having solid evidence to back up their rights.