DMCA Designated Agent Address: The Copyright Office Publishes Your Company's Street Address, and a PO Box in That Field Needs a Waiver

What the statute and the Copyright Office rule require

The statute is 17 U.S.C. 512(c)(2). It says the limitation on liability for material stored at the direction of users applies to a service provider only if the provider 'has designated an agent to receive notifications of claimed infringement' and has made 'the name, address, phone number, and electronic mail address of the agent' available 'through its service, including on its website in a location accessible to the public', and has also provided that information to the Copyright Office. The same paragraph tells the Register of Copyrights to maintain 'a current directory of agents available to the public for inspection, including through the Internet', and lets the Register ask for 'other contact information which the Register of Copyrights may deem appropriate'.

Notice what the statute lists: the agent's details. Your company's own street address enters through that last clause. The Office's rule, 37 CFR 201.38, sets out what a designation must contain, and under paragraph (b) the service provider supplies its full legal name and physical street address, every alternate name the public would be likely to use to search for it, including website addresses and app names, and its designated agent's name, organization, physical mail address, telephone number, and email address. In the 2016 notice the Office wrote that it was 'continuing to require service providers to supply a physical mail address, pursuant to the Register's authority under section 512(c)(2) to require any additional contact information the Register deems appropriate', and, two sentences later, that it was 'requiring that the physical mail address be a street address, and not a post office box'.

The opening words of paragraph (b) apply to the provider's details as well as the agent's. The service provider must make available, through its service and on its website in a location accessible to the public, the information paragraph (b) lists: its own name, street address, and alternate names, along with the agent's details. It must provide the same information to the Office. The directory FAQ answers the question of what must be made available on the website and provided to the Office with the same list. The 2016 notice says the same thing about the provider's address, which 'remains part of the information that a service provider is required to display on its Web site'.

Paragraph (c) of the rule adds details the Office collects for administrative purposes: the name, phone number, and email of a representative of the service provider, and a phone number and email address for the service provider itself. The rule says these will not be displayed in the public directory and need not be displayed on your website. What the directory shows for the provider is its name, its street address, and its alternate names.

Registration happens online at dmca.copyright.gov. As of September 2026 the fee schedule in 37 CFR 201.3 and the directory FAQ put the fee at $6 per designation, amendment, or resubmission. Under paragraph (c)(4) of the rule a designation 'will expire and become invalid three years after it is registered' unless the service provider renews it by amending or resubmitting it, and either action begins a new three-year period. Designations filed on paper under the old system had to be refiled electronically by December 31, 2017, and the FAQ says that as of January 1, 2018 any designation not made through the online system has expired.

Who counts as a service provider is defined in 17 U.S.C. 512(k)(1)(B) in broad terms: 'a provider of online services or network access, or the operator of facilities therefor'. The Office's FAQ answers the question of who must designate an agent in one line: any service provider seeking the safe harbor protections of section 512. The FAQ describes the consequence of choosing not to designate an agent, or of letting a designation lapse, as the risk of losing those safe harbor protections. Section 512(l) adds that failing to qualify for the safe harbor does not weaken a provider's other defenses.

The registration asks for two addresses

The registration form asks for an address twice, and the two fields follow different rules. Here is how 37 CFR 201.38(b) and (c) and the directory FAQ describe each field.

Why the two fields are treated differently

When the Office published the final rule on November 1, 2016, it explained the provider side briefly. The street address requirement exists because there are circumstances where it is important for a copyright owner 'to be able to physically locate the service provider (e.g., for accurate identification of the service provider or to serve a legal notice)'. The notice records that two commenters supported requiring a street address from service providers and that none objected.

The agent side went the other way. The Office had proposed allowing a post office box for the agent 'due to concerns about agents' privacy and safety, particularly where an agent's only address is a home address'. Some commenters argued that a street address better ensures the agent is a real person. The Office kept its proposal: 'the final rule will allow a designated agent to specify a post office box and will not require a street address', because 'requiring a physical street address is unnecessary to achieve the goals of the statute'.

One comment recorded in the notice describes the situation this article is about. The Recording Industry Association of America argued that where the agent is an individual with only a home address, that person is either the sole owner of the service provider, 'in which case he or she must supply his or her physical address anyway as part of the service provider contact information', or an employee or consultant of a small company with no central office. That is the mechanism to watch. Naming an outside agent, or giving the agent a PO box, keeps the agent field off your home address. It does not change what goes in the provider field.

The Office also declined a suggestion from the same commenter to require proof of the provider's address. It wrote that it was sympathetic to the concern about inaccurate entries and that the new renewal requirement should largely resolve it. The address in the directory is what you typed and, under paragraph (c)(2) of the rule, attested to as true, accurate, and complete. It is refreshed by you every three years.

The waiver is written for safety threats

The provider-side exception is in 37 CFR 201.38(b)(1)(ii). A post office box may not be substituted for the street address 'except in exceptional circumstances (e.g., where there is a demonstrable threat to an individual's personal safety or security, such that it may be dangerous to publicly publish a street address where such individual can be located)', and then only where the service provider makes a written request and the Register of Copyrights determines that a waiver is warranted.

The directory FAQ describes the procedure. The request goes to the Office of the General Counsel, by email or by signed letter, and it identifies the service provider, gives the post office box the provider wants to use, and includes a detailed statement of the specific threat. There is no fee for the request. The FAQ adds that a waiver applies to the service provider's address only, since a designated agent may use a post office box without one. If it is approved, the provider may display the post office box on its website and receives instructions for completing the electronic registration, where, in the words of the 2016 notice, 'the Office will override the system to insert the post office box as the service provider's address'.

Read the standard the rule sets. It is a demonstrable threat to a person's safety or security, and the 2016 notice calls such cases 'rare situations'. A preference for keeping your home address out of a public directory is a reasonable preference, and it is a different thing from the standard the waiver describes. For someone running a site from home, the practical question is which street address to give the Office.

Is a business address at another location a street address for this rule?

The rule excludes a post office box and asks for a 'physical street address'. It does not define that phrase further. The directory FAQ and the 2016 notice we read do not mention mail forwarding services, private mailboxes, or virtual offices in either direction. The closest thing to guidance is the purpose the Office gave: a copyright owner should be able to physically locate the service provider, for identification or to serve a legal notice.

We found one statement on the subject, and it is not from the Office. A page on internetlegalattorney.com, a business that sells a designated agent service, was on the first page of the same results and states in its FAQ that the Copyright Office 'has concluded' that where the service provider is a natural person operating from a private residence, the street address of a mail forwarding service can qualify as the provider's physical street address without a waiver. We could not find that conclusion in the Office's directory FAQ, in 37 CFR 201.38, or in the 2016 Federal Register notice, and in a web search for the sentence we found no other page that carries it. The same page's service notice tells its customers that the provider address 'cannot be a P.O. box or similar service or virtual address' and must be a 'real' address where the business receives legal documents. Until the Office says one of those two things itself, treat both as the vendor's statements.

Our own reading, which the Office has not confirmed: the provider field asks where your business can be physically located and served. For a company, that is the street address at which the company conducts its business, where mail and legal papers addressed to the company are received in its name. A commercial street address where the company does both of those things is a street address, and it is not a post office box. A drop box that receives nothing addressed to your company, or an address you have never used for the business, does not fit the purpose the Office described. If you want an answer you can rely on when you file, the Office takes questions through its DMCA contact form at help.copyright.gov, and an attorney who handles section 512 matters can review your specific setup. What this article does not say is that any particular address, ours included, has been approved by the Office for this field. We found no such list in the directory FAQ, the rule, or the 2016 notice.

Three registrations that share the word agent

Search results for this topic mix three registrations that share a word. They are run by different offices under different rules, and one does not stand in for another.

• DMCA designated agent. Federal. Registered with the Copyright Office under 17 U.S.C. 512(c)(2) and 37 CFR 201.38 to receive notifications of claimed copyright infringement. Public directory at dmca.copyright.gov. This is the one this article covers.
• Registered agent. State. Named in your LLC or corporation filing to receive service of process and state notices, under the law of the state where the company is formed or registered. A commercial registered agent's address can replace your home address in that field of the state filing. Naming a registered agent does nothing for the DMCA designation, which is a separate registration that asks for the service provider's own street address. Our article on what a registered agent does and does not hide covers the state side.
• Copyright Claims Board designated service agent. Federal, and separate. The Copyright Claims Board keeps its own directory where a corporation, partnership, or association can name an agent to receive notices of proceedings before the Board. It is a different registration under a different rule, and the Board's own page says its directory is used for a different purpose than the DMCA directory.

Before you register

The registration itself takes minutes. The decisions behind it are the part worth doing once, carefully.

• Decide what goes in the provider field. It is your company's full legal name and a physical street address at which the company conducts its business and where papers addressed to it are received. Once filed, that address is public in the directory and on your site. When we opened a public entry in the directory, it showed the current designation and the history of earlier designations with their effective dates. Expect an address you filed in the past to stay visible in the entry's history after you amend it.
• Decide who the agent is. You, a job title at your company, or an outside service, and one agent per service provider. The agent's mail address may be a PO box. Notices sent to the agent are what trigger your duty to respond under section 512, so use an address and an inbox that someone reads.
• List the alternate names. The rule requires all names the public would be likely to use to search for you, including the names you do business under, your website addresses, and app names. The FAQ says the top-level domain is enough for a website. Related companies that are separate legal entities need their own designations.
• Post the agent information, and your company's name, street address, and alternate names, on your site. Section 512(c)(2) requires the agent's details to be available on your website in a location accessible to the public, and the opening words of paragraph (b) of the Office's rule apply the same posting to the provider's details: its name, its street address, and its alternate names. The statute does not name the page. A copyright policy page or your terms page works as long as the public can reach it without logging in.
• Put the renewal date on a calendar. A designation expires three years after registration unless it is renewed. If you change the provider address, the agent, or the alternate names, amend the designation. Each amendment or resubmission is $6, and the rule says that either one begins a new three-year period.
• Register before you need it. In Oppenheimer v. Allvoices, Inc., a federal court in California ruled in 2014, on a motion to dismiss, that the site could not invoke the safe harbor for infringing conduct that occurred before it designated an agent with the Copyright Office. The safe harbor did not reach back to the roughly two months between the uploads at issue and the registration.