If you have written a book, article, painted a picture, or written a computer program, you have created copyright. Unlike other rights, such as trademark rights, copyright protection arises automatically upon creation of the work. Therefore, copyright is not subject to mandatory registration, but doing so has many advantages for copyright holders.
Advantages of copyright registration
First and foremost, in most cases, before filing a copyright infringement lawsuit in federal court, the plaintiff must have a registered copyright.
Also, suppose the copyright owner registered the copyright before the infringement began or within three months after the first publication of the works. In that case, they are entitled to recover not only actual damages and the infringer’s profits, but also statutory damages and attorney’s fees. Unlike actual damages, which the plaintiff must prove, statutory damages are determined by the court and do not require proof. Thus, the standard range of statutory damages is from $750 to $30,000. In case of innocent infringement, the court may reduce the sum, but the minimum is $200. However, in case of willful infringement, the court can increase it up to $150,000.
So, timely copyright registration can simplify the process of proving damages, provide an opportunity to obtain statutory damages, and even reimbursement of attorney’s fees. Copyright registration in industries where it is often infringed, such as books, computer programs, photographs, and visual works, is especially important.
Another benefit is the ability to register your work with U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Registering your copyright with customs allows you to stop the products that infringe on your copyright. Registration and stopping are much more effective than fighting copyright infringement after the product crosses the customs border and becomes available for sale by various suppliers and in various stores and online.
What can be registered as copyright
Copyright protection may be granted to and registered for:
- Literary works (regardless of genre and length: both non-fiction and fiction; both books and articles);
- Performing arts (music, lyrics, sound recordings);
- Visual arts (artwork, illustrations);
- Photographs (including selfies);
- Computer programs and databases;
- Motion pictures (movies, shows, videos, video games).
However, ideas, methods, and concepts are not protected by copyright. This means that if you came up with the idea for a story and turned it into fiction, the idea itself is not protected by copyright; the book (the expression of your idea) is.
One good may consist of various objects of both copyright and intellectual property. For example, in a video game, the video game script, images of the game characters, videos in the game, musical accompaniment, and the computer program may be protected by copyright. Moreover, the game developer may, and it is recommended, register the name of the game as a trademark.
Copyright registration for works created entirely or partially by AI
With the development of AI tools, creating content has become simpler. Most AI programs can write articles, books, draw illustrations and book characters, translate books into other languages, draw graphics, and create special effects for videos. If you have used AI to create a work, you should remember that there is a so-called human requirement for copyright to arise. That is, if an animal painted a picture or took a photograph, even if the work formally looks like a copyrightable object, it is not protected by copyright due to the lack of human creative input. The same applies for objects generated by AI, which, like animals, are not considered human and therefore lack required element of human authorship.
In practical terms, this means that:
- If AI wrote the entire work, then it is not subject to copyright, and you cannot register it.
- If you used AI to create part of the work, then you have copyright and can register the part of the work that you created yourself, but you must indicate in the application that you do not claim rights to the part created by AI.
- If you used artificial intelligence only as a tool for technical work, such as blurring license plates in a video, then you have copyright without any restrictions.
You might also be interested: Copyright Protection of AI-Generated Content
Copyright registration procedure
To register copyright, you need to prepare an application and a work for deposit, as well as pay the appropriate fee. In the application, you indicate information about the author or authors, and also the owner or owners of the copyright (for instance, if the author transferred the copyright under a contract or the author created the work as a work for hire). It is also possible to register a work when the author is anonymous or uses a pseudonym.
You will also need to provide information about the work itself, including the title of the work (with the previous and alternative titles), the year the work was completed, the date of first publication, etc.
To register a copyright, you will also need to deposit the work. The specifics of depositing works depend on the type of work (for instance, depositing a sculpture for copyright registration will be significantly different from depositing a computer program).
After filing an application for copyright registration, it will be reviewed to determine whether the work is subject matter that can be copyrightable and whether it meets the formal criteria. The copyright registration period is approximately two months.
How a copyright attorney can help you
Copyright attorney Mariya Ortynska will guide you in selecting the object or objects of copyright that are worth registering, prepare an application for copyright registration, and accompany the registration process. Ortynska provides advice on authorship, for example, on the work-for-hire regime or the reliability of copyright when the work was created under contract by an individual contractor. Book a consultation with Mariya Ortynska or reach out at [email protected] or by phone at 9147035632.