The Benefits of Copyright Registration

Oftentimes, I get this question from current or prospective clients: “how do I copyright my work?”

I usually tell them, “you don’t have to because you (most likely) already own it. Copyright isn’t an act one engages in, it’s a suite of rights, granted under the U.S. Copyright Act, that attached from the moment your work is ‘fixed in a tangible medium of expression.’” That is, the moment your work is recorded somehow - in writing, on paper, on a computer, in audio, video, etc, etc. Among the rights granted to you under copyright law: the right to own, use, exploit, and transfer ownership to the work. Other than creating it, you do not need to engage in any further actions to own it.

What people are really asking, though, isn’t how to acquire ownership over their work, but how to protect it from others who might use it without permission. And while there are a lot of different answers to that question, they almost always start with registration.

There are four reasons to register your copyright:

1. You can’t sue for copyright infringement without it. Copyright is a federal law and as such, you can’t defend your copyright from someone in federal court without an official copyright registration. While it is okay to register after you discover someone infringed your work, it’s more beneficial if you do it beforehand, ideally before your work is even published (more on that in a bit).

2. It creates an official government record that your work predates the infringing work - this is called a presumption of ownership - which is given a lot of weight and authority in a courtroom setting, more-so than any other form of proof you might be able to offer. In many cases, this might be all you need to do to prove your ownership over the work, since ownership is often at the center of copyright infringement claims.

3. If you register your work before it’s infringed, you can sue for statutory damages (starting at $750 per work and going up to $150K per work). The benefit of this is that you don’t need to prove how much of a financial hit you took as a result of the infringement, and it can give you significant leverage in any settlement discussions with the infringer. That said, you can only sue for statutory damages if you registered prior to the work being infringed. If you register afterwards, you’ll have to prove actual damages - the actual financial loss you suffered as a result of the infringement - and that can be much harder.

4. Last but not least, registering your copyright is something you can do yourself without the aid of an attorney - and is thus much cheaper than any other form of protection you can engage in. Registration can be done online at the U.S. Copyright Office website. The process is relatively quick and affordable (as little as $45 for each work), and if everything is done correctly, your work will register in as little as 2 months.

Copyright registration is like auto insurance. You may never need it, but you’d rather have it if your car gets wrecked. If you want to protect your work, do it preemptively by registering your copyrights.