Tell the Copyright Office to take a hike

But do be a tad more polite about it... Rich, over at The English Guy, cites a Nikolaos S. Karastathis (NSK Blog) post about the plan the Copyright Office has to implement a copyright pre-registration site that will ONLY work with Internet Exploder. Nikolaos links to the specific notification by the Copyright Office and suggests writing a letter (the Copyright Office won't accept emails on this). Below is the letter I'm sending. They require five copies to be sent. May I humbly suggest sending eight? Five to the Copyright office and CCs to your congresscritters (representative and senators)? Oh, and do note the CCs on the copies sent to the Copyright Office... :-) Oh, and spread the word, eh? Locking a fedgov website down for ONE company's product smacks of something a tad fishy. Maybe the Justice Department should look into the monopoly aspects. *LOL* Office of the General Counsel U.S. Copyright Office Copyright GC/ I&R P.O. Box 70400 Southwest Station Washington, DC 20024-0400 Dear Reader: At this Web address: http://www.copyright.gov/fedreg/2005/70fr44878.html I just read that the Copyright Office is planning to implement copyright preregistration via the web ONLY for those using Internet Explorer web browser. Are you sure that's wise? Internet Explorer is the least standards-compliant major web browser. It is also historically the least secure—in fact, Homeland Security has recommended people switch!— most “attacked” by malicious users and is available for use ONLY by Windows users. In fact, “... market dominance is not the only reason for the Microsoft browser's disproportionate share of attacks. Art Manion, Internet security analyst for US-CERT, the operational arm of the National Cyber Security Division at the Department of Homeland Security, says IE's unique features increase its online vulnerability.” [PC World Magazine online, “Is It Time to Ditch IE?” October 2004) Anyone who is competent can build a secure website that does not require the use of proprietary, non-standards-compliant software such as Internet Explorer. Standards-compliant (W3C-compliant) browsers abound, and standards-compliant websites can be read and interacted with by users of all popular web browsers, including Internet Explorer. I urge you to maintain openess at the Copyright Office and eschew the use of unsafe, proprietary, non-standards-compliant software such as Internet Explorer as your benchmark. Sincerely