Contrary to the almost indefatigable lay assumption that entertainment lawyers like myself hear all the time, one is not required to register a copyright in one’s work with the US Copyright Office (USCO) in the Library of Congress in Washington, DC (or elsewhere) as a condition precedent to U.S. copyright protection. In other words, the New York-based author in Chelsea, for example, already has copyright protection in his or her finished original work of authorship, under US federal law, just as soon as the work is reduced to a tangible medium of expression in New York. That copyright protection is automatic and inherent to the Chelsea-based New York author immediately, your entertainment attorney will opine.
Thus, when the New York entertainment lawyer hears the Chelsea-based New York writer say, “I ‘protected the copyright’ of my novel by registering it with the Library of Congress and the Copyright Office in Washington, DC”, the writer is generally operating under a misconception. set of geographic and legal assumptions. It is up to the entertainment lawyers to correct those assumptions. This is a particularly difficult myth to debunk, because members of Congress, case law writers and editors, and some legal scholars have also been known to use “copyright” as a verbal form. When I listen to it, it sounds like nails on a blackboard.
So, “No,” the New York entertainment lawyer replies to the New York writer in Chelsea, “you already had automatic copyright protection on your work as soon as you wrote the text, as soon as you narrowed your vision down to a ‘tangible'”. means of expression.” Your act of mailing it from a post office on the west side of Manhattan in New York City, to Washington DC, is not what spawned the copyright. Rather, your prior act of crystallizing it into a tangible medium here in downtown West Side New York (from pencil to paper or keystroke to hard drive) is what gave birth to the copyright of his work It should probably be avoided altogether, certainly avoided as synonyms for “record” or “file,” specifically to avoid that kind of lay confusion. After all, if the writer of Chelsea in New York[sic] his work only by mailing it to Washington DC on Friday morning, that would imply that the work was not yet copyrighted when he or she completed the final draft, hit the “Save” button on their keyboard, and printed it out as printed at its Chelsea headquarters in Manhattan last Thursday night, and that conclusion would be legally incorrect. In that fact pattern, the entertainment attorney opines, the copyright existed and the screenwriter owned it as of Thursday night based on the events that transpired in downtown New York’s West Side.
The copyright registration process in the US is just a later formality, although entertainment lawyers (from New York, and yes, even other places like Hollywood) often handle it for their clients. In other words, the work is already copyrighted before you mail the work from New York, or any other city, to the US Copyright Office and the Library of Congress in Washington, DC Yes , US copyright registration provides certain advantages thereafter over unregistered works, as your entertainment attorney will tell you. But copyright registration is not in itself a prerequisite for copyright protection. Copyright protection comes first. The copyright filing comes second.
After all, the USCO form specifically asks the filer when (in what year) their work was completed. In theory, you could apply in 2011 for a work completed in 2006. In that case, the copyright would have existed as of 2006.
Under the US Copyright Law (which can be found in various places on the Internet at 17 United States Code [U.S.C.] Section 101 et seq.), the author of an original and protectable work automatically owns a copyright in that work as soon as the work is reduced to a “tangible medium of expression.” Not later.
The choreographer from New York on the West Side of Manhattan improvises a new series of dance steps for her students, fleetingly, in the air, but does not own the copyright to these movements or their interpretation or interpretation. However, the moment you write down the original dance steps using a detailed graphic chart, or videotape yourself performing them in your New York studio, perhaps at the suggestion of your entertainment attorney, then you may have a chance to claim any work protected by copyright. The key, again, is the reduction of the work to a fixed medium. In fact, it’s possible that she owns the copyright to that material without ever interacting with Washington, DC, although your entertainment attorney will tell you that it would surely be a good idea to mail a submission to DC if the work is perceived. original authorship. have some long-term economic or other value.
And this makes sense. Look at it from a copyright enforcement perspective: From the perspective of the New York entertainment trial attorney trying to prove or disprove copyright infringement in a downtown court of law at 500 Pearl Street . How difficult would the job be for a federal judge or jury in a US copyright infringement litigation in the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York, or for an examiner at the Copyright Office? of the US in Washington, DC, if the US Congress allowed us all to claim copyrights in the nascent and evanescent? Courts in New York and indeed across the country would be inundated with strike suits and other spurious copyright claims, perhaps more often brought by pro se litigants rather than their entertainment attorneys, if any. . Therefore, Congress won’t let us get away with it. Congress requires reduction to a “tangible medium of expression” as a precondition for copyright protection. But no, Congress does not require copyright registration as a precondition for copyright ownership itself; rather, copyright registration at or around the time of creation is discretionary with the copyright owner. Congress only requires copyright registration as a precondition for filing a copyright infringement lawsuit, something your litigating entertainment attorney won’t lose when reviewing the statute prior to filing suit in federal court.
Yes, your entertainment attorney will tell you that copyrighting a work after it occurs provides certain strategic advantages, relative to unregistered works. The copyright registry notifies those of us in New York and California, USA and the rest of the world, at least constructively, that the copyright claimant believes that he or she owns the copyright in that copyright. registered work. Practically speaking, copyright registration creates the possibility that another company, including your own entertainment attorney conducting a copyright search, will “select” (i.e., view or notify) the previously registered work , when that company or its entertainment attorney conducts a thorough professional (or even perfunctory) eye search of the public records of the US Copyright Office based in Washington, DC. Most movie studios and their entertainment attorneys conduct extensive copyright searches as a matter of course, for example, before opting for an author’s literary work.
As discussed above, whether you live in New York, Los Angeles, or elsewhere, copyright registration with the US Copyright Office is federal court. For this reason, in practice, people and entertainment companies and their attorneys have been known to occasionally file their copyright days, or even hours, paying an emergency rush filing fee using a Fed Ex from New York to DC , before suing for copyright. offense in federal court. Of course, the entertainment attorney will tell you that it is better to register the work at an earlier stage. Filing a copyright infringement lawsuit based on a USCO copyright registration in turn allows the entertainment attorney litigant to recover certain types of damages awarded by US Copyright Law. , such as “statutory” damages and plaintiffs’ attorneys’ fees. These types of damages would not be available to the copyright plaintiff if her entertainment attorney sued using a different common law theory. A copyright registration may also provide advantages in terms of certain international copyright protections.
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