The required procedures for registering claims of copyright in the United States Copyright Office don’t match up well with the practicalities of modern web publishing. It would be almost a full time job to file new copyright applications each time a blog is updated, let alone prohibitively expensive. And what on earth forms are you supposed to fill out? How do you send in a copy of your blog to claim copyright registration in it?
Sarah Bird, Esquire over at SEOmoz.org has written an excellent little article titled Copyright: Sample Forms and Strategies for Registering your Online Content which helps cut through the confusion and anachronisms you’ll face when sending materials to the Copyright Office. She’s a terrific writer (I wish I could write so clearly), and does a great job outlining a subject that is needlessly confounding.
July 31, 2008
It has long been my understanding that it is unnecessary to register copyrights as they are rarely infringed and if they are you can register before sending the first complaint to the infringer. Courts have consistently held that not having registered a copyright does not mean that you never intended to and that as long as it is your work, dated and featuring the copyright symbol, year, author or artist name clearly the form could be filed any time and you would enjoy full protection.
Adrian Vance