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How can we get a book we've written (words, music, and pictures) copyrighted? Thanks!?


Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: I've been a professional fiction writer for 25 years, and I predict that some of the answers you get will say, "As soon as you have produced your work in a fixed form (i.e. written it down or recorded it) it is automatically copyrighted," and this is true. But there is a further, formal step that you can take to register your copyright with the Copyright Office in the Library of Congress, and I always take that formal step with everything that I write.

Why bother with a formal registration? Because if your copyright were ever infringed, your legal protections are MUCH stronger with registration than without. Your question wasn't about why you should register, but let me address that briefly:

If all you have before an infringement is the "automatic" copyright, then all you can recover in court is (1) the money that the infringer made from your work and (2) any actual costs that you can prove that you sustained because of the infringement. Also, you can force the infringer to destroy the illegal copies of your work. But it is not easy to prove how much the infringer made or how much the infringer cost you, and you have to pay all of your own attorney's fees and court costs.

If you have registered your copyright, then the infringer is subject to statutory penalties. You don't have to prove how much you were harmed, the court will order the defendant to pay you a high arbitrary figure...even if the infringement was "innocent" and the infringing party says, "I just didn't know." Also, the infringer has to pay the court costs and the fees of your attorney.

It's hard to get an attorney to represent you in a case of infringement for a work that wasn't registered prior to the use without permission. It's much easier to hire an attorney on a contingency basis for a case where you registered, because the attorney knows that you'll win and knows that there will be a big judgment in your favor.

So that's the WHY, which you didn't ask.

The how: Assuming that you are resident in the United States, go to the U.S. copyright office's web page and download form TX. Fill it out, and send it in along with a check for $45 and a manuscript of your words and pictures. There is a different form for musical works, form PA. I think you would probably have to submit the words and pictures with form TX (and $45) and the sheet music with form PA (and another $45) to have full and complete registration of all parts of your work.

All of this takes time, effort, and money. Is it worth it? Most of my writing colleagues do not bother with copyright registration. The theft of the contents of books is very, very rare. The people who could expect to actually make money from your book are the very people who would not dream of damaging their reputations by stealing someone's work. In the case of your project, you could register the literary part (words and pictures, form TX), the sheet music (form PA), and a sound recording of you playing the music and singing (form SR), and you'd pay $135 in fees! Yikes! In your situation, I'd probably settle for registering just the words and pictures since I probably won't be infringed upon for only the tune. Probably. Indeed, at $45, you do have to start wondering if registration is worth it at all.

However, it's very easy for work to be infringed on the internet by people who will like what you did and copy it for the world to see out of the goodness of their hearts, and this could damage your chances to make money from your work. Also, registering the copyright means that if someone does post your work on the web without your permission, you can demand immediate payment from them as a very strong and convincing way to say, "Take it down! Now! And if you want to say that information wants to be free, I'll take your house!"

I hope you'll never be involved in a case of infringement. I never have been. But if you hope to earn something from your creative work, it's good to know that you have some protection. Formal registration with the copyright office gives your work the best legal protection possible, and puts you in a strong position of someone rips you off...or even innocently posts your work on the web without your permission.

Some of my copyrighted work, by the way, can be seen at www.shortshortshort.com. I am a writer of very short stories.

All of this assumes that you are in the U.S. Copyright laws vary. Copyright laws in Europe offer even stronger protections to the author.