How to Register Your Copyright

Your work is already copyrighted. The moment you write the song, record the track, paint the image, or finish the photograph, you own the copyright. That protection is automatic under 17 U.S.C. § 102(a). No filing required.

So why register? Because registration is what turns that automatic right into something you can actually enforce. Without it, your copyright exists on paper but a lawyer cannot take it into court. This guide covers what registration does for you, when you must file, which form to use, and how to do it step by step.

Why Registration Matters

Copyright protection is automatic, but the remedies that make a lawsuit worth filing are not. Registration changes your legal position in four concrete ways:

• It is the door to the courthouse. 17 U.S.C. § 411(a) bars any infringement lawsuit until the Copyright Office has issued a registration certificate. No registration, no lawsuit. Period.
• It unlocks statutory damages and attorney's fees. If you register within three months of first publication, 17 U.S.C. § 412 lets you recover statutory damages of $750 to $30,000 per work, and up to $150,000 per work for willful infringement. Those are set amounts you do not have to prove. Without them, you must prove your actual damages and the infringer's profits, which is far harder and often far smaller.
• It creates a presumption of validity. A registration certificate made before or within five years of first publication is prima facie evidence that your copyright is valid. 17 U.S.C. § 410(c). The defendant has to knock it down, not the other way around.
• It is your standing for the takedown fight. If you file a DMCA takedown and the infringer files a counter-notice, the content goes back up in 10 to 14 business days unless you sue. If you have not registered, you cannot sue. The infringer learns you are toothless. Register first.

The Three-Month Window

The single most important deadline in copyright is the three months after first publication. 17 U.S.C. § 412 ties your most valuable remedies to it.

If you register within three months of first publishing the work, you can recover statutory damages and attorney's fees for infringement that happened before registration. If you wait past three months, you lose those remedies for any infringement that started before your filing date. You can still recover actual damages and the infringer's profits for all past infringement, and you can still get an injunction to stop it, but the set statutory amounts and your attorney's fees are gone for that earlier conduct.

What You Can Register

Registration covers every category of creative work, including:

• Sound recordings: the actual recorded audio
• Musical compositions: the underlying song, the words and melody
• Visual art: paintings, illustrations, graphic design, photographs
• Literary works: books, articles, poetry, lyrics
• Software: source code and related text

For music specifically, there are two separate copyrights: the sound recording (the audio file) and the musical composition (the song itself). When you wrote the song and recorded it yourself, you own both, and a single group registration can cover both layers.

Which Form to File

The Copyright Office offers group registrations that let individual creators register many works for one fee. These are the options that matter:

Situation	Form	Fee	Works Covered
Single work	Standard application	$45	1 work
Unpublished batch	Group Registration of Unpublished Works (GRUW)	$85	Up to 10 works
Published on one album	Group of Works Published on an Album of Music (GRAM)	$65	No limit, one album

These fees are for electronic filing through the eCO system. Paper filing costs more and takes longer.

Step-by-Step eCO Filing

The Electronic Copyright Office (eCO) is at copyright.gov/eco. You will need an account. Here is the sequence:

1. Create or log in to your eCO account at copyright.gov. Registration requires a free account.
2. Select the right application. Under "Other Registration Options," pick Standard, Group of Unpublished Works, or Group of Works Published on an Album, matching the table above.
3. Enter each work title individually. For an album, list every track. Do not enter only the album name.
4. Identify the author and claimant. You are the author if you created the work. You are the claimant if you own the copyright. For a self-made work these are the same person.
5. Enter the publication date if the work is published. If you are using the release-first trick, this is the day your album went live, and it must be within three months of your filing date to preserve statutory damages.
6. Upload deposit copies. One file per work. MP3 or WAV for audio. The Copyright Office keeps these as the official record of what you registered.
7. Pay the fee. A credit card is required.
8. Save your confirmation. The case number and receipt are your proof of filing. Your priority date is the day the Office receives your complete application, payment, and deposit, not the day they finish processing.

What Counts as "Publication"

Publication is not commercial success. 17 U.S.C. § 101 defines publication as distributing copies of the work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending. A Bandcamp page at $0, a public link to your song, a post on a streaming platform. Any of these is publication, even with zero sales, zero listeners, and zero promotion.

This is why the release-first trick works. You do not need an audience. You need the work to be technically available to the public. The day that happens is your publication date, and it starts the three-month clock.

Filing Under a Stage Name

The Copyright Office allows pseudonymous registration. You can file the work under your artist name, with your legal name in a separate field that is not part of the public record. If you perform as a band or under a stage name, this keeps your identity private while still registering the work to you.

The tradeoff is the term of protection. A work registered under a pseudonym is protected for 95 years from publication or 120 years from creation, whichever is shorter, instead of the author's life plus 70 years. For almost everyone this difference is not meaningful.

Processing Time and Priority Date

Standard electronic registration currently takes several months, and can range from roughly three to eight months depending on volume. You can request expedited "special handling" for $800 per work, which gets a decision in about five to ten business days.

The key fact is the priority date. Your registration is effective as of the day the Copyright Office receives your complete application, payment, and deposit, not the day they issue the certificate. So filing today, even with slow processing, preserves today's rights. The certificate arrives later, but the legal position is locked in at filing.

Last reviewed: August 2026. Filing fees and Copyright Office processes are current as of this date. This guide provides information about the law. It does not constitute legal advice. Beaumont & Sheridan is not a law firm. Consult an attorney for advice about your specific situation.