Copyright Registration

Copyright protects original works of authorship fixed in a tangible form: writing, music, photographs, video, art, software code, and architectural designs among others. Ideas and facts alone are not copyrightable; only your specific expression of them is. The work must be original to you and recorded in some tangible medium. Most creative work qualifies.

Copyright exists automatically the moment your work is fixed in a tangible form. Registration is what unlocks the legal tools that come with copyright: the right to sue for infringement in federal court, statutory damages, and attorney's fees. Without registration on file before an infringement occurs (or within 3 months of publication), those tools narrow significantly.

Three things. The right to file an infringement lawsuit in federal court (registration is a prerequisite under §411). Statutory damages of $750 to $30,000 per infringement, up to $150,000 if willful. Attorney's fees if you win. Without registration, you're limited to actual damages, which are often hard to prove and small in dollar terms.

USCO processing currently takes 3 to 8 months for standard applications, and 5 to 10 business days for expedited filings (additional USCO fee applies). Your effective registration date is the day USCO receives a complete application, not the day they issue the certificate. We file within 24 hours of receiving your deposit and authorship details.

Yes, in many cases. USCO allows group registration for unpublished works, photographs (up to 750 per group), short literary works, and serial publications, when all works share an author and meet specific eligibility rules. We check whether your works qualify, then file one application that covers each qualifying work. The cost per work drops sharply.

Each contributor with original creative input is a co-author and shares ownership unless a written agreement says otherwise. Work-for-hire is a special category: when an employee creates within scope, or a commissioned work fits one of nine statutory categories with a written agreement, the hiring party owns the copyright from the start. We map ownership before filing.

USCO registers the human-authored portions of a work. AI-generated portions are excluded from protection per the January 2025 USCO Part 2 report and the Thaler v. Perlmutter line of decisions. Your application must disclose AI involvement when AI contributed to the work. The Strategic Filing tier handles this analysis: what you authored, what AI contributed, what gets registered.

For works created on or after January 1, 1978, copyright lasts the life of the author plus 70 years. For works made for hire, anonymous works, or pseudonymous works, copyright lasts 95 years from first publication or 120 years from creation, whichever is shorter. USCO Circular 15a covers the duration rules across all categories of works.

Yes. You can transfer copyright in whole or in part by written assignment, license it on an exclusive or non-exclusive basis, or, in many cases, terminate a prior transfer after the statutory period (35 to 40 years depending on the transfer date). Registration creates the public record that licensees and buyers ask to see.

Copyright protects original creative expression: a song, a photograph, a manuscript, a software codebase. Trademark protects brand identifiers: names, logos, slogans. The same project may need both. A song's recording is registered as a copyright; the artist name is registered as a trademark. See our Trademark Registration page for that side.