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Copyright Registration and Infringement

How copyright arises automatically in an original work and what registration with the Copyright Office adds - the right to sue, statutory damages and fees - together with the elements of an infringement claim, the exclusive rights it protects, and the remedies and defences on both sides.

Informational only - this is not legal advice. These definitions explain general legal vocabulary in plain English. They are not advice about your situation, reading them creates no attorney-client relationship, and the law differs from state to state and changes over time. For advice you can rely on, speak to a lawyer licensed in your state.

What it means

Copyright protects original works of authorship - writing, music, images, film, software, architecture, choreography - from the moment they are fixed in a tangible form. No notice, publication or registration is required for the right to exist, and the © symbol is optional. Copyright does not protect ideas, facts, procedures, systems or methods of operation, only the particular expression of them, and it does not protect titles, names, short phrases or slogans, which are the province of trademark. The owner holds a bundle of exclusive rights: to reproduce the work, prepare derivative works, distribute copies, perform and display it publicly, and for sound recordings to perform it by digital transmission. Ownership belongs to the author, or to the employer for a work made for hire, and lasts for a term fixed by statute.

Registration is a formality with teeth. A United States work cannot be sued on until the Copyright Office has registered it or refused it, and only a work registered before the infringement began - or within a short grace period after first publication - is eligible for statutory damages and attorney's fees; an owner who registers after the infringement is limited to actual damages and the infringer's profits, which are often hard to prove. Registration also creates a presumption of validity if made within a period after publication, and is required to record the work with customs. It is inexpensive, done online, and the certificate is the exhibit every infringement case begins with.

An infringement claim requires ownership of a valid copyright and copying of protected expression - shown by direct evidence or by access plus substantial similarity - that amounts to an improper appropriation. Independent creation is a complete defence, as are licence, fair use and the first-sale doctrine, under which the owner of a lawfully made copy may resell or lend it. Remedies are an injunction, actual damages and profits, or at the owner's election statutory damages per work within a range the statute sets, raised for wilful infringement and reduced for innocent; impoundment and destruction of infringing copies; and attorney's fees at the court's discretion. Criminal penalties apply to wilful infringement for commercial advantage or on a large scale.

Where this comes from

The Copyright Act of 1976, title 17 of the United States Code: subject matter at 17 U.S.C. § 102 (Feist Publications v. Rural Telephone, 499 U.S. 340 (1991), on originality and facts), exclusive rights at § 106, ownership at § 201, term at §§ 302-305, registration at §§ 408-412 (the pre-suit requirement at § 411(a) as construed in Fourth Estate Public Benefit Corp. v. Wall-Street.com, 586 U.S. 296 (2019)), remedies at §§ 502-505 (statutory damages at § 504(c); Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, 579 U.S. 197 (2016), on fees), first sale at § 109, and criminal infringement at § 506 and 18 U.S.C. § 2319. Warner Chappell Music v. Nealy, 601 U.S. 366 (2024), addresses damages for older infringements. The Copyright Office rules are at 37 C.F.R. part 202. The term, the registration grace periods and the statutory-damages range are not stated here.

When people hire a lawyer for this

For a creator or small business the cheapest legal advice in this field is to register early and in batches, because the difference between a registered and an unregistered work at the moment of infringement is the difference between a claim worth pursuing and one that is not. A person who finds their work copied should preserve the evidence - screenshots with dates, the infringing URL, purchase records - and consult a lawyer before sending a demand, since a takedown notice, a licence offer and a lawsuit are different tools for different infringers. A person accused of infringement should ask about fair use, licence and the registration date before paying anything.

Find a lawyer for this in your state

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Part of the LawyerLand plain-English legal glossary. Definitions are written from primary sources - statutes and court rules - and each entry states the authority it rests on, or says plainly when the doctrine is state law with no national rule.

If you cannot afford a lawyer, civil legal aid programmes provide free help with many of these problems: civil legal aid programmes by state.

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