1st February 2007

UK Copyright Service are pleased to announce the launch of online ordering and registration renewal/extension systems.

Online registration renewal/extension

As a matter of course, when a work nears the end of its registration period we write to the client offering the opportunity to renew their registration, but prior to this upgrade this was an entirely postal based process. The latest changes see the introduction of online renewal, and extends the whole registration process to allow our clients to extend their registration at any time during the last 5 years of registration, as well as renew registrations that have expired within the last 28 days.

This development removes most time constraints from the renewal process. Clients can protect their work well into the future without having to ensure that the renewal takes place in the last 120 days.

Online ordering

We have expanded our online services, so that clients may now order additional certificates, registered notice labels and duplicates copies of their work at any time of the day or the night using our new online ordering systems. These new services make it quick and easy to order, and will provide a faster turnaround time.

Improved look for 2007

We have updated the website to provide greater clarity and to make it easier to find information. Our registration services have been enhanced to help make the process easier to follow, and we now provide step-by-step guides to help those who are new to online registration and registration updates.

Leading the world, and still looking for improvements...

We are the only online registration service in the world to allow uploads of up to 2GB in size (with so called ‘alternative’ services trailing in our wake with tiny restrictions between 1-10MB!), and our Web Support team have vast experience dealing with uploading over the internet. Broadband has significantly changed the Internet, allowing clients to upload more data than was previously possible. We know that every now and again a client runs into difficulty with an upload, but its not necessarily the Internet connection that is to blame. Our Web Support team have completely revised the upload information page to provide some valuable information and top tips to uploading successfully.

Barry Pearce, Director of Software Engineering for the UK Copyright Service suggests that there is still more to come:

“Currently we are have limited our systems to 2GB per file because of poor browser support for larger files, and relatively slower client uplink connections. However, we are already developing software to overcome some of these problems and allow even larger reliable uploads for our clients. With the introduction of 64bit processors (and therefore 64bit compatible browsers), and as broadband continues to improve in speed and reliability we expect to see these limits rising.”

Continued commitment to providing the very best levels of service

The launch of the improved look and more online ordering services are part of our continuous development and improvement programmes. These programmes are a cornerstone in our philosophy of service delivery, ensuring that you receive the very best levels of service to be found both on and off the Internet.

Director of Software Engineering, Barry Pearce commented:

“We are continually reviewing our services to seek improvement where we can, and take a proactive approach to monitoring web servers and the online registration and ordering systems. In fact, many of the changes in our latest update, in particular changes to the registration process, have come from this work.”