August 22, 2005 -- The U.S. Copyright Office should assure that one of its key websites works with all popular browsers, the Open Source and Industry Alliance (OSAIA) said in comments filed with the Office today. Indeed, the Office should be prepared to accept paper submissions when necessary until compatibility problems can be fixed, association officials said.

The submission was filed by the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA), OSAIA’s parent organization, in response to an inquiry that was issued earlier this summer. The Office asked what, if any, would be the effect of a website that did not work with browsers other than Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. The Office asked the question because its website will soon allow copyright owners to register their works prior to publication.

OSAIA and CCIA urged the Office to consider the effect on the marketplace as a whole when determining site design.

“The long-term gains from ensuring compatibility with a variety of software alternatives … prove to be substantial,” OSAIA and CCIA told the Office. “Interoperability promotes the transfer of information between different computing environments, improves accessibility, promotes consumer choice, and in our Internet-enabled economy constitutes the cornerstone of electronic commerce.”

Consensus standards organizations such as the World Wide Web Consortium provide a clear roadmap for the broadest compatibility, the associations said.

“As the Office develops its new system, CCIA encourages it to support open web standards such as those propounded by the World Wide Web Consortium (‘W3C’), whose membership spans the public and private sectors of the Internet, and includes both the Library of Congress and several CCIA members … By designing a system to open standards rather than the specifications of individual applications, the Office will further its function and improve users’ experiences, while promoting the vitality of the software market by not ‘picking winners.’”
Read the comments filing here