The Copyright Office Goes Electronic
I’ve never registered anything with the U.S. Copyright Office. When I was in school, one of my professors told me that it wasn’t worth the money to register, as long as I kept timestamped electronic files of all my work. Since I was a poor student at the time, I gladly took his advice and never looked back. Besides, registration seemed too time consuming and complicated to me, so why bother?
Now I’m thinking twice. At a time when copyright law is being challenged regularly, particularly where digital content is concerned, copyrighting my work seems a bit more important. Thankfully, the U.S. Copyright Office is making an effort to make registering work a bit easier. If, like me, you’ve been holding back on submitting your work, now you can do it in just a few simple steps. Log into the eCO (Electronic Copyright Office), fill out an electronic form, pay up, upload your work, and submit. It doesn’t get much easier than that.
There are a few other benefits to registering your work using the electronic system, too. You’ll save $10 off the basic paper submission ($35 vs. $45). Once you’ve submitted your electronic copyright registration, you can track the status online. The Copyright Office also claims that your online registration will be processed faster than paper registration.
If you’re interested in more information on the process of registering your work with the U.S. Copyright Office, visit their website. You can also check out the eCO tips, FAQ and tutorial for more information on using the new electronic submission system.
Do you copyright your work regularly? What do you consider worthy of official registration with the Copyright Office? Have you used the eCO yet, and if so, how was the experience? Feel free to share in the comments.
Posted in legal stuff
August 29th, 2008 at 8:04 am
Ummmmmm… I was of the impression that whatever you right is automatically copyright ~ in fact that all you need to do is write your Full name, date and copyright..
August 29th, 2008 at 8:04 am
Excuse me – whatever you WRITE.. sorry
September 1st, 2008 at 6:16 pm
Carmen – Technically, you’re right. It’s proving the copyright that can be a problem. As long as you have some way to prove when the piece was written (e.g. timestamped file), you will be able to argue that you created the work first, therefore owning the copyright. However, if you don’t have this proof, it could be difficult to argue that you own the copyright. There are other benefits to registering your work with the Copyright Office, as well. Hope that helps.
January 8th, 2009 at 12:40 pm
Its important for any one who reads this to remember that the read to copyright your work is to ensure that you get credit in case you have to one day go to court and dispute someone else who may be getting royalties or credit for a song that you yourself wrote. Because copyright laws change so much without public knowledge its better to cover yourselves by going through the proper procedueres to copyright your music instead of cutting corners and paying for it later. With all the history that the music industry has with stealing musical works from other writers/producers when the time comes when you have to stand up against their lawyers you need to be sure you’re doing everything you can to get credit for your work. Even if its as simple as paying the US Copyright Office once for a song its still your insurance plan that you won’t get screwed over later by one person or an entire record company.