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Ready to start your copyright application? How to begin

Do you know how to complete your U.S. Copyright Office copyright registration? Click through to read insider tips on how to file and submit your application. And learn why the first step is selecting the proper form and explaining what you are registering.

Picking the right copyright application and identifying what you are registering

Every Sunday night I make a cup of tea and plot out my week at the kitchen table. I pull out colorful pens and my trusty Little Ostu planner. I make sure my appointments in my planner match up with my electronic calendar and vice versa. I look at my client to-do list and my editorial calendar and block off time to tackle those items. Finally, I look at my goals for the month and figure out how I can move them forward that week. Sometimes things go as planned. Other times my plan falls flat.

This week, I foiled my own plan. My original plan required editing a video and registering a copyright in some content. Plus about 13 other things.

When the time came to register my copyright, I opened up Spotify put on some 90’s jams and started the process. While I was doing this, my brain jumped back to a webinar that Maria Brophy and I co-hosted.

Do you know how to complete your copyright registration? The first step is selecting the copyright application form and explaining what you are registering.Several people commented that their big takeaway was the importance of copyright registration.

Then it hit me, I know all these little tricks that make completing this application easier. And I bet that some of you would like to learn these tricks.

So rather than editing the video, I created a new one. And it gives you a behind-the-scenes peek at how I go about registering my copyrights.

After I did the first take I realized it was way too long for a single video, so I split it into three parts. Here we tackle selecting the right application and identifying what you are registering. The rest of this series covers:

  • telling the Copyright Office who created it and who owns it, plus how to contact you
  • paying the Copyright Office and uploading an electronic copy of your work