RE:

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There are a few things that you either are not aware of, or choose to ignore. 

First: the ICRA (International Cultivar Registration Authority) is the organization under which the AIS holds the registration authority for non-bulbous iris. The ICRA REQUIRES that the iris Registrar publish all registrations IN PRINTED HARDCOPY. This of course is a costly process and the requirement is met with the annual publication of the Registrations and Introductions booklets. Also, although not required to do so, the Register publishes a decade Check List - a compendium of the previous ten yearS R&I's including any corrections that have been made to the previous publications.

It is not unreasonable, and it is permitted by the ICRA, to charge a fee for the R&I's to offset the costs of printing. 

Additionally, the Registrar has operational costs: computers, printers, postage costs etc. that are covered by the registration fees. 

Irisregister.com, the online database of registrations, is a separate entity. It is a service provided by AIS for people who want a faster, easier way to research iris names, parentage, hybridizer's introductions and other information. Users often copy descriptions out of irisregister to make lists for their gardens, shows and fundraising sales. That saves them from having to type out all those descriptions.

All the same information in Irisregister is available in the R&I's. So, Irisregister is a service that is a benefit to people in terms of saving them time. No one has to use it. If one wants to register a particular name, one simply fills out the registration form with the name and alternatives and mails it to the Registrar. The Registrar will vett the name and respond with approval or disapproval as appropriate. All it costs you is a stamp (plus of course the registration fee if your name is granted). You realize of course that the Registrar does not currently receive a fee for most non-US registrations. Individual country Associate Registrars may charge a fee, but the registrar is funded almost exclusively by North American registrations.

Irisregister, aside from making the selection of a name easier, provides a much broader capability that saves people time. Much of the same information is being integrated into the Iris Encyclopedia, a wiki environment, that is available to anyone for free. The IE is not complete and will never be as up to date  (in terms of registration information) as the R&I's and Irisregister just because of the time lag in getting the information into the IE. Irisregister also provided a much more robust search capability than that available in the Iris Encyclopedia.

Irisregister is not a free service for a couple of reasons. First because we have to pay for the internet hosting service. They after all have to buy the hardware and software and pay connection fees and people to service the system and are in business to make a profit on their investment. Second: We had to pay a programming service to develop the irisregister service, database, web interface etc. So there were some implementation costs as well as ongoing maintenance and hosting costs. Hard money expenditures that are not funded by the registration fees.

The Registrar periodically sends me updates to the database that I upload to the online data. Aside from that, I spend a great deal of personal, volunteer time servicing irisregister and subscriptions to the service. 

$10.00 a year is not an exorbitant fee. There are still,  even after 7 years of irisregister, many individuals who want the hard copy R&I's. I have no doubt that more and more people will give  up hard copy for electronic versions as time goes by, but irisregister provides a valuable time saving service.

There is always the hue and cry that everything on the web should be free, but the internet costs money. Backbones, servers, fiber optic cable, satellites, routers, software and maintenance, and people to run and manage them all cost money. 

We all want people to register their irises. Most hybridizers want to know the parentage of cultivars before they use them in their breeding programs. A wonderful plant is not a candidate for awards unless it is registered (and introduced). If you name is not unique, someone may buy a different cultivar with the same name than yours. I understand that it costs to register an iris and that is a personal decision driven by your own priorities but that has little to do with irisregister.

John