Copyright

The U.S. Copyright Office, and the position of Register of Copyrights, were created by Congress in 1897 as a separate department of the Library of Congress. Twenty-two years earlier, Congress removed copyright registration from the district courts and centralized it in the Library of Congress. Today, the Copyright Office has approximately 450 employees, the majority of whom examine and register hundreds of thousands of copyright claims in books, music, movies, software, photographs, and other works of authorship each year. In fiscal year 2011, the Office processed more than 700,000 registration claims.


The Office’s registration system and the companion recordation system constitute the world’s largest database of copyrighted works and copyright ownership information.

The Office administers several statutory licenses that manage and disperse private monies, including those pertaining to copyright owners’ rights in programming on broadcast television signals that are retransmitted by cable operators and satellite carriers.


It also provides basic copyright information services to the public in a variety of ways. Last year, the Office’s Information and Records Division answered hundreds of thousands of inquiries by phone and email, performed search and retrieval functions for customers involved in research and litigation, and served a substantial number of in-person visitors.


Congress has also prescribed critical law and policy functions for the Copyright Office. See 17 U.S.C. § 701. These include: domestic and international policy analysis; legislative support for Congress; litigation activities; support for the courts and executive branch agencies (including significant efforts on trade and antipiracy initiatives); participation on U.S. delegations in meetings with foreign governments or private parties; attendance and participation at intergovernmental meetings and other international events; hosting copyright training for copyright officials from developing countries; and providing public information and education. The Copyright Office works regularly with the Department of Justice, the Department of State, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, and the Department of Commerce, including the Patent and Trademark Office. By statute, the Register of Copyrights is a member of the interagency intellectual property enforcement ad visory committee chaired by the U.S. Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator ( IPEC ).

Claims to copyright in published and unpublished books or manuscripts can be registered as literary works in the Copyright Office. Textual works with or without illustrations are eligible, as are other nondramatic literary works, including fiction, nonfiction, poetry, contributions to collective works, compilations, directories, catalogs, dissertations, theses, reports, speeches, bound or loose-leaf volumes, pamphlets, brochures, and single pages containing text. See sl-35, Registering a Copyright with the U.S. Copyright Office, for the methods available for copyright registration.


Deposit requirements for literary works depend on whether a work has been published at the time of registration. For unpublished works, one complete copy or phonorecord is required. If you use the electronic Copyright Office (eCO) to register your unpublished work, you can submit your deposit electronically. See sl-35 for details about eCO. If you choose to submit a physical deposit or to register using a paper application, there is no specific require‑ ment regarding the printing, binding, format, or paper size and quality of the unpublished manuscript material you deposit. Typewritten, photocopied, and legibly handwritten manu‑ scripts, preferably in ink, are all acceptable. However, because deposit material represents the entire copyrightable content of a work submitted for registration, copies deposited in a format that will facilitate handling and long-term storage (for example, stapled, bound, or clipped material) are greatly appreciated by the Copyright Office.


The deposit requirements for published works are as follows:

• if the work was first published in the United States on or after January 1, 1978, two com‑ plete copies or phonorecords of the best edition

• if the work was first published outside the United States, one complete copy or phono‑ record of the work as first published

• if the work is a contribution to a collective work and published after January 1, 1978, one complete copy or phonorecord of the best edition of the collective work or a photocopy of the contribution itself as it was published in the collective work.


Copyright protects an author’s expression in literary, artistic, or musical form. Copyright protection does not extend to any idea, system, method, device, name, or title. See Circular 1, Copyright Basics, for more information about copyright, deposit requirements, and registra‑ tion procedures.






(Please note that this is intended to be ironic.)