Timely Registration of a Copyrighted Work
For a copyright registration to be “timely,” registration must be made within three months of the publication of the work and before any infringement occurs. Timely registration enables the copyright owner to seek attorney’s fees and statutory damages in an infringement action.
Registering the work within three months of “Publication”
Registration must occur within three months of the publication of the work (and before any infringement) for you to be able to seek statutory damages and / or attorneys’ fees in an infringement action.
Further, registering a published work as “unpublished” can invalidate the copyright registration!
The Copyright Act defines publication as, “offering to distribute or actual distribution of copies of a work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease or lending.” Specifically, the work must be offered to the public without implicit or explicit restrictions. Further, distribution to a limited class, for a limited purpose is a limited publication, which is not considered the kind of general publication that would render a work “published” under the Copyright Act.
If you created only a limited number of works and gave copies of the work only to friends and family, that should constitute a “limited” publication, so that you can register the work as unpublished. If you offered to give or gave the works to any retail outlets or other re-sellers, that would count as general “publication.”
Registering the work before infringement occurs
Registration must occur before any infringement (and within 3 months of publication) for you to be able to seek statutory damages and / or attorneys’ fees in an infringement action.
A Certificate of Copyright Registration is required to sue someone for copyright infringement. Although your registration date is the date that the Copyright Office receives the application, your copyright registration is not valid until you receive the Certificate of Registration from the Copyright Office. If you apply for registration using the “standard” method, you will not receive the Certificate of Registration for 6-8 months. Should someone infringe the work while you are waiting for the registration to issue, you will have to file an expedited registration application to sue them, and you will not have the right to seek statutory damages or attorney’s fees (since registration will be made after the infringement started).
The Copyright Office charges $30.00 for a standard registration application. The Copyright Office charges $610.00 for an expedited registration application. If you believe that your work is likely to be infringed shortly after it is published, it may be worth it to file the “expedited” registration to ensure your right to seek statutory damages and attorneys’ fees.
