Your first U.S. copyright application

Suppose you have finished a short illustrated guide. You wrote the text, a freelancer drew the cover, and the guide is about to go on sale. The text is already yours: ordinarily the person who creates a work is its author and owner. 4 Registration adds a public record of your claim 1, and for a U.S. work you cannot file an infringement suit until the Copyright Office has registered or refused it. 8 Registration covers only what you own: the owner of the copyright, or of an exclusive right in it, is the one who registers. 8 So before you open the form, be able to say in one sentence what you are registering and why it is yours.

Choose the work and the right application

1. Start at the registration portal at copyright.gov/registration. It links to the Electronic Copyright Office (eCO) login, to guidance for each type of work (literary works, visual arts, photographs, performing arts, motion pictures, other digital content) and to the group registration options. 2
2. Check whether the Single Application fits. It is labelled "One Work by One Author" in eCO and works only if all of these are true: you are registering one work; one individual created it; every bit of material in the work and the deposit is by that individual; that individual is the sole owner and claimant; and it is not a work made for hire, a joint work, or a work based on someone else's work. 3 Stock photos, clip art, images found online, or a foreword by another person rule it out. 3
3. Otherwise use the Standard Application. It is the most commonly used application and takes several titles, authors and claimants. 3
4. For several works, look at the group options first. The portal lists group registrations for two-dimensional artwork, short online literary works, musical works on one album, unpublished works and others. 2 A folder of files is not one work: if you need to upload more than one file, the Single Application almost certainly does not fit. 3

The guide in the example has a cover drawn by someone else, so it goes on the Standard Application. 3 Get this right the first time. If you file a Single Application for a work that does not qualify, the Office refuses it, and you refile on the Standard Application with a new fee, a new deposit and a later effective date. 3 The current fee for each application type is on the Office's fee page. 10

Tell the story of authorship and ownership accurately

The application records the title, the author, the claimant's name and address, the year of creation, whether the work is published, any earlier registration, and any preexisting material. 1 Fill in each from the facts, not from whoever holds the files.

• Author. Ordinarily the person who actually created the work. For a work made for hire, the employer or the commissioning party is the author. 4
• Claimant. The party that owns the copyright. 4 If you transferred rights before filing, for example exclusive publication rights to a publisher, you cannot use the Single Application. 3
• Work made for hire. Only two situations count: an employee creating the work as part of the job, or a specially commissioned work that falls in one of nine categories (pictorial illustrations prepared for someone else's work and instructional texts are among them) where both sides signed a written agreement saying it is a work made for hire. If any piece is missing, it is not a work made for hire. 4

In the example, claim your text. The cover belongs to the freelancer unless a signed agreement made it a work made for hire 4; paying for it or having permission to print it does not make you its author. Exclude it from your claim: on the Standard Application, describe the cover art on the "Limitation of Claim" screens as material excluded. 35 If a contract with the freelancer or an employer leaves ownership unclear, have a copyright attorney read it before you name the author and claimant. For more on contractors, see Who owns work made by employees and freelancers.

If you used AI and the AI-generated material is more than minimal, use the Standard Application, describe what the human author contributed in the "Author Created" field, and exclude the AI material under "Material Excluded" in the "Other" field, for example "[description of content] generated by artificial intelligence." Do not list the AI tool or its company as an author. If you are unsure how to describe it, state that the work contains AI-generated material and the Office will contact you. 5 Making things with AI covers what you can claim.

Publication has a set meaning. It is distributing copies to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease or lending; offering copies to a group for further distribution also counts. A public performance or display alone is not publication. 6 The publication date is generally the date copies were first made available to the public. 6 For the guide, that is the day copies first went on sale. If it was online earlier, check whether visitors could get a copy or only look at it. Write the date down now from your sales or upload records; it decides which deposit you send and when the three-month window below starts. 18 Do not guess a date to get past the screen.

Complete all three parts of the submission

eCO runs in a fixed order: complete the application, pay the fee, then submit your work. It asks for the work only after payment. 7 Pay by credit or debit card, electronic check or Copyright Office deposit account; the fee is nonrefundable. 1 Pay.gov emails a payment confirmation. 7

Then send the right deposit:

• Unpublished, or published only online: upload one complete copy in eCO. 1 Each file can be up to 500 MB, in one of the accepted file types. 17
• Published in a physical edition, even if a digital version also exists: send physical copies, not an upload. A work first published in the U.S. generally needs two complete copies of the best edition. 1
• Visual art and computer programs: you generally send identifying material, such as photographs of the artwork or source code, instead of the work itself. 1

For physical copies, print the shipping slip from eCO and put it in the same package as the copies. 1 A package without its slip means delays, extra copies and a later effective date. 7 The printed guide in the example needs physical copies even though you filed online. 1

Keep the submitted application, the Pay.gov confirmation, the upload confirmation or shipping record, and all correspondence in one folder with the version of the work you deposited. Looking after the records behind your rights shows how to set that up.

Understand what happens after you click submit

1. Expect automated emails confirming the application and fee, and the upload if you uploaded. 1 These are receipts, not a registration.
2. Track the claim by logging in to eCO and clicking the case number in the Open Cases table. 7
3. Answer the examiner. If the Office needs more information, a staff member contacts you by email or phone. Most email comes from cop-ad@loc.gov, so check your spam folder and keep your email and phone number current. 1
4. Get the decision. If the Office registers the work, the certificate comes by mail; if it refuses, you get a letter explaining why. 1

The effective date of registration is the day the Office received the application, deposit and fee in acceptable form, not the day it finished examining or mailed the certificate. If something was missing or unacceptable, the date moves to when the last piece arrived. 18 You do not need the certificate before you publish, and you do not need the Office's permission to put a copyright notice on your work. 1

Register early. You cannot get statutory damages or attorney's fees for infringement of an unpublished work that began before the effective date, or for infringement that began after first publication but before the effective date, unless registration is made within three months after first publication. 8 If the guide goes on sale on March 1, make sure the Office has the application, fee and deposit by the end of May. The three-month window is not when copyright begins, and missing it does not stop you from registering: you can register at any time while the copyright lasts. 8

Remember that the record is public

Everything you put in the application becomes public, and most of it appears online. 9 The deposit copy is part of the public record too and can be viewed on request. 1 Use a non-personal address, phone number and email, such as a P.O. box or a business address. 9 The Office removes an author or claimant name from the online record only after a legal name change, and removes a claimant's address only if you give a replacement. 9

If you publish under a pen name, do not put your real name anywhere in the application: it becomes part of the public record, it cannot be changed once the Office registers the work, and naming yourself changes the copyright term to your life plus 70 years. 3

Claim exactly what you made and own, nothing broader. When the certificate arrives, file it with the deposited version of the work and the contracts that explain the rights behind it.