First they appoint a pro-Microsoft lawyer to be the new ambassador to the European Union; now our government may make IE the way to complete a copyright preregistration form.
Over and over again, we find that real life is much stranger than anything we could imagine.
But it is. Today, it was disclosed on WebmasterWorld that the Copyright office is requesting comments regarding any potential issues with requiring Internet Explorer to fill out a certain form.
The Federal Register of the Library of Congress has posted the issue online. From the summary:
“Today’s notice seeks information as to whether persons filing the electronic-only preregistration form prescribed by the Copyright Office will experience difficulties if it is necessary to use Microsoft’s Internet Explorer web browser in order to preregister a work.”
The Copyright office has been working on the pre-registration issue due to the passage of the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act, which contains the ART Act that was used to charge a 19 year-old Missouri man with pirating movies by camcording them in a theater.
It appears the Copyright office has been developing a new system for preregistering claims online, but their developers may not have had cross-browser compatibility in mind while working on the project:
“(I)t is not entirely clear whether the system will be compatible with web browsers other than Microsoft Internet Explorer versions 5.1 and higher. Filers of preregistration applications will be able to employ these Internet Explorer browsers successfully. Support for Netscape 7.2, Firefox 1.0.3, and Mozilla 1.7.7 is planned but will not be available when preregistration goes into effect. Present users of these browsers may experience problems when filing claims.”
David Utter is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business. Email him here.
