Interview: Copyright Registration – General Counsel Online

Copyright Registration Interview

- Step 1 of 5

Your Name *

First

Last

Your Business Email *

Your Company Name

Before we begin: Is your work copyrightable?

If your work is not copyrightable, we want to save you some time answering questions and refund your Service Package payment. If it is not copyrightable, you cannot register it with the Copyright Office and this Interview is not necessary.

Copyright protects a wide range of human expression (see our post on copyright (link)). It protects everything from musical scores to video productions to choreography to photos to paintins to music tracks to instruction manuals to sales brochures to computer software. However, copyright does not protect every form of human expression.

If your work is one of these items, it is probably not copyrightable:

	The item is not recorded on paper, on canvas, stone, magnetic tape, memory chip, disk or another tangible medium of expression.
	The item is the title or name of a book, a play, an article, a song, a program, etc.
	The item is just a short phrase (e.g., "a better mousetrap" or "we serve you best"). (It may be trademark-able, nonetheless)
	The item is merely useful (like a "yield" road sign or an "open this end" notice on a box or perhaps a list of food ingredients or the contents of a container).
	The item is a blank form of some sort.
	The item involved no act of creation or authorship or is not original (for example, an alphabetically-organized telephone book or the output of a database query).

Do you believe the item you're seeking to register is copyrightable?

YES, my work probably is copyrightable
NO, my work probably isn't copyrighable

If you are in doubt about the copyrightability of your work...

... please exit this Interview and either set up a Consultation with us or send a message on Slack. If your work is indeed not copyrightable, we will refund your payment for this Service Package. Otherwise, please proceed with this Service Package Interview.

How many separate and distinct works are you seeking to register?

What type(s) of work(s) are you registering? (Check all that apply.)

Literary Work. A nondramatic literary work, such as an article, novel, essay, poem, short story, nonfiction work, computer program, manuscript, or dissertation.
Work of the Visual Arts. A pictorial, graphic, or sculptural work, such as a photograph, logo, sculpture, piece of jewelry, painting, drawing, illustration, comic strip, fabric design, textile design, wallpaper design, or another single piece of artwork.
Sound Recording. A works that results from the fixation of a series of musical, spoken, or other sounds but not including sounds accompanying a motion picture or other audiovisual work. Generally, a sound recording is a recorded performance, often of another work.
Work of the Performing Arts. A musical work (with or without lyrics) or a dramatic work, such as a screenplay, play or other script.
Motion Picture or Audiovisual Work. One motion picture by one author or one audiovisual work by one author, such as a selfie video featuring one person, one animated film created by one person, or one video game created by one person.

What is the NAME of the work?

If it has a title, please use that. Otherwise, how do you and your company refer to it?

Who is the AUTHOR of the work?

The person who originally created it, if known. If it is not known, simply enter the current copyright holder (owner) of the work.

On what date was the Work CREATED

When was the Work first created (roughly, if known).

Has the work been published?

Publication is the distribution of copies or phonorecords of a work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending. Generally, publication occurs on the date on which copies of the work are first made available to the public. If the work has not yet been published, please leave this blank.

When was the work published?

Is the work a DERIVATIVE work?

A derivative work is a work based on or derived from one or more already existing works. Common derivative works include translations, musical arrangements, motion picture versions of literary material or plays, art reproductions, abridgments, and condensations of preexisting works. Another common type of derivative work is a “new edition” of a preexisting work in which the editorial revisions, annotations, elaborations, or other modifications represent, as a whole, an original work.

Is the work a COMPILATION of other works?

Compilations are words collections of pre-existing material (whether or not owned by the applicant) that are selected, coordinated, or arranged in such a way that the resulting work as a whole constitutes a new work. When the collecting of the preexisting material that makes up the compilation is a purely mechanical task with no element of original selection, coordination, or arrangement, such as a whitepages telephone directory, copyright protection for the compilation is not available.

Name