Congrats! You submitted your copyright registration application to the U.S. Copyright Office.
But…then you discover that it’s going to take 2-10 months for your certificate to arrive. Do you have to wait to sell your work until you have a certificate in hand?
Learn how quickly you can start selling your work in this week’s episode of Ask Kiff.
Watch the video | Read the show notes | Read the transcript
Show notes
- Need help registering your copyrights? Get instant access to a step-by-step course that walks you screen-by-screen through the process!
You don’t need more information. You need a system.
If you’ve been trying to piece together your legal from blog posts and Google searches, it’s no wonder it feels overwhelming. Inside the artist’s Courtyard, you’ll find a clear, step-by-step system so you can move forward without the chaos.
Transcript
Woohoo! You finally took the step of registering your copyright with the U.S. Copyright Office. And after you do so, you see this little link that says “Processing Times”. And you click on the link and you see that it can take two to ten months to get your certificate.
Do you have to wait to release your work until that certificate arrives?
That’s exactly what we’re going to cover in this week’s episode of Ask Kiff.
Hi, I’m Kiffanie Stahle, founder of the artist’s J.D. A place designed to add ease to the legalese of running your creative business.
This week’s question comes to us from Kathy in Nebraska. Kathy asks,
How long do I have to wait to sell my work after I submit my copyright registration application?
What’s the date on your copyright registration certificate, if you’re not going to get it for two to ten months?
The date that’s going to be on your copyright registration certificate isn’t the date that the Copyright Office mails it, many months in the future.
The date is going to be the date the Copyright Office receives three things.
The date that they receive:
- your application
- your fee
- your uploaded files or the package you mail to them
So if you go through the process and you’re able to upload your files through the electronic system, you’ve submitted your application, you’ve paid your fee and you’ve got your email notification that they’ve gotten your uploaded files, that date is the date that the copyright registration certificate will be effective. (Even though you’re not going to get it for many months.)
If you have to mail a package to the Copyright Office, you’ll have submitted your application and paid your fee online. And then the date that that package arrives at the Copyright Office, that’s the date your registration will be effective.
So once you have that notification from the Copyright Office, you’re going to get three of them.
You’ll get the first one to say we’ve got your payment.
You’re going to get the second one to say, your application has been submitted and we’ve been told by pay.gov that you’ve paid.
And then you’re gonna get a third one that says, either we’ve gotten your uploaded files, or your package has arrived.
So once you get that third email, then you can go ahead and release your work. Because that’s the date your copyright registration will be effective.
If you want help filling out your copyright registration application, I’ve got a course where I walk you through step-by-step how to fill it out. So that you can confidently submit your copyright registration application to the U.S. Copyright Office.
You don’t need more information. You need a system.
If you’ve been trying to piece together your legal from blog posts and Google searches, it’s no wonder it feels overwhelming. Inside the artist’s Courtyard, you’ll find a clear, step-by-step system so you can move forward without the chaos.
If you are scaling a creative business, you already know the legal side matters. The problem is finding the time to handle it properly, so it often gets pushed to the side.
When that happens, small details get missed and expectations are not as clear as they should be. Clients have questions. Boundaries get tested. And suddenly, you are spending time fixing issues that could have been handled up front.
I am Kiff, a legal strategist for creatives and a licensed attorney with 15+ years of experience helping photographers, designers, and illustrators protect and grow their businesses with clear contracts and client systems.
Each Friday, I send one focused, jargon-free legal task you can complete in 15 to 30 minutes. So you can reduce client friction, protect your work, and keep your business running smoothly without adding more to your plate.
Your privacy is important to us. Learn how we protect it here.
