Your work is officially protected as soon as you create it; no registration with the US Copyright Office is required.
However, the fact that registration is not strictly mandatory does not mean that there are not excellent reasons to officially register your copyright. Let’s look at some of these reasons below.
1. You need a copyright registration before you can take legal action against someone for infringing your rights.
Being protected by copyright is one thing; Defending that copyright in a court of law is quite another. If you want to sue someone for using your material without permission, you’ll need an official copyright registration.
2. It is extremely expensive to rush a copyright registration.
More than 20 times more expensive, to be precise.
A paused copyright registration is only $35. The process takes a few months. It is not a big thing.
Now suppose someone uses your job and you can’t wait a few months, you want to take it to court right away. You can certainly register your copyright after the fact, for $760. Isn’t it much simpler (and cheaper!) to register right away, before any legal entanglement?
3. Immediate registration allows recovery of legal fees.
If you register your copyright immediately (before copyright infringement comes to light, or within three months of publication), you may be able to seek compensation including legal damages and attorneys’ fees.
However, if you register after a copyright infringement, or after three months have passed since publication, you will pay your own legal fees no matter how the lawsuit turns out. And, to make matters worse, you will only be able to recover actual damages and lost profits.
4. Registration creates a public record of your work.
If you write a song, for example, and someone hears it and wants to contact you and offer you money in exchange for licensing fees, wouldn’t you want to make it as easy as possible for that person to contact you?
With an official copyright registration, you will be able to provide an address and/or email address, which you are comfortable with, for public inquiries. All anyone has to do is type in your job name, and they’ll know exactly how you’d like to be contacted about it. Simple!
With all these reasons to protect it with the US Copyright Office, $35 doesn’t seem very high. Protect your job, and your rights, today!