The United State Copyright Office’s online registration was down for more than a week – from August 28 to September 6 – following a computer failure at the Library of Congress, which operates the Copyright Office in addition to overseeing the national library and providing Congress with research advice.

The Washington Post reported that scheduled maintenance on a data center in the library’s James Madison Building resulted in building-wide power outages. Library officials were unable to restore technology systems, and the office is estimated to have lost at least US$650,000 in registration fees during the extended outage.

“This is pretty significant, and we have to do everything to make sure this never happens again,” U.S. Register of Copyrights Maria Pallante told the Post. “It’s ridiculous.”

On Sunday morning, Washington time, the Copyright Office posted on its website that its systems had been restored and that it was once again able to accept registration applications electronically. During the outage, potential copyright applicants were told that they would have to wait until the system was restored – or use the office’s paper-filing system, with a processing time of up to 13 months, or twice as long as e-filing.