Do I Have To Register My Art

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A work of fine art is automatically protected past copyright police force equally soon every bit it is created, and you are not required to register the work with the U.S. Copyright Office to protect your work. All the same, registering the work with the U.South. Copyright Office does provide one main benefit—in the event you accept to defend your copyright, registration provides an official date on the public record you can point to to justify your copyright-infringement claim. Moreover, you cannot file an infringement arrange until your copyright is registered.^[1]

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Prepare your computer to apply eCO. Virtually copyrights can be registered using the U.S. Copyright Office's electronic registration system, known every bit eCO. Before using eCO, you will demand to make certain your computer is optimized to run eCO in order to avert technical bug during the registration process. Adjust your settings equally follows:^[two]:
- Disable your browser'due south pop-up blocker.
- Disable any third-party toolbars.
- Set up your security and privacy settings to medium.
- The U.S. Copyright Office has tested the eCO system using the Firefox browser on the Microsoft Windows 7 Operating System, and advises that other configurations may result in less-than-optimal eCO performance.^[3]
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Familiarize yourself with the eCO process. If you would like an overview of how to use the eCO system to register your copyright, accept some fourth dimension and read through the tutorial presentation offered past the U.S. Copyright Office.^[4] The tutorial will walk you through using the eCO organisation to file your copyright registration.
- A number of other sites provide pace-past-step instructions on using the eCO system if y'all don't like the government'due south presentation.
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Consummate the eCO application. Later y'all take familiarized yourself with the process, open the eCO portal and create an account.^[five] After doing and then, click on "Register a New Claim" on the left-hand side of the welcome page, and follow the prompts to provide the necessary information for your copyright registration.
- Equally you complete the application, the steps on the left-hand side will become checked off. When all sections are checked, your application is prepare to send.^[vi]
- When y'all have entered and reviewed all information for accurateness, click "Add together to Cart," The amount of your filing fee will be displayed on this window. Review the data, and then click "Checkout" to proceed to the payment step.
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Pay the fee. Yous have several options for payment. First, you can enter your banking company-account information and transfer the required funds electronically.^[7] Alternatively, you can pay with a debit/credit card. To do this, you volition be directed to Pay.gov, a website operated past the U.S. Treasury Department that handles payment to government agencies.^[viii]
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Deposit a copy of your work. The final stride in this procedure is to ship in a copy of the work existence registered to the U.S. Copyright Role. More often than not, you lot may merely eolith a copy through eCO for works that are either (1) unpublished or (ii) published but electronically.^[9] After paying the fee, click "Proceed." Y'all can upload an electronic copy on the post-obit screen.^[10]
- If you lot have to send in a physical copy of your work, click "Create Shipping Slip" on the bottom of this screen, print the slip, attach it to the packet, and send it to the accost listed on the skid.^[11]
- If you are unsure of the deposit requirements for your particular piece of piece of work, contact the U.Southward. Copyright Function.^[12]
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Review all correspondence y'all receive from the Copyright Role immediately. The Copyright Office may contact you lot by phone or e-mail near your application. If whatsoever additional documentation or information is required, you volition be notified and should update your registration application as presently as possible.
- Check your spam folder to brand sure you practise non miss annihilation.
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Follow up on your registration. To check the status of your awarding, log in to eCO and click on the blueish case number associated with your claim in the "Open Cases" table at the lesser of the screen.

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Understand the basic steps to annals a copyright. Registering a copyright with the U.S. Copyright Office involves iii basic steps: (1) consummate an application either on newspaper or using the U.Southward. Copyright Office'due south eCO registration system; (ii) paying a fee; and (3) depositing a re-create of the work existence registered with the U.S. Copyright Office.^[13] One time y'all complete these steps, your copyright volition be officially registered.
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Know which types of work can be registered using eCO. If you can, you will want to utilize eCO to register your copyright because using this electronic organisation results in the lowest filing fee, the fastest processing time, the ability to track your submission online, and the ability to eolith certain works directly online without having to post them in separately (and run a risk them getting lost, damaged, etc.). You can utilize eCO to register the post-obit works:^[14]
- Literary Works
- Visual-Arts Works
- Performing-Arts Works
- Sound Recordings
- Motion Picture show/Audiovisual Works
- Single-Serial Issues (e.thousand., a single issue of a magazine or newspaper)
- For detailed explanations of the above terms, consult the U.Due south. Copyright Office'south guide explaining the different types of creative works.^[xv]
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Determine if your work is published or unpublished. You volition just be able to use eCO to register (1) whatsoever unmarried work, (2) a collection of unpublished works past the same author, or (three) multiple published works in the same unit of publication (similar a volume of pictures).^[xvi] The publication status also determines whether or not you will exist able to deposit a copy of your work electronically, or if you lot will have to mail in a re-create to the U.S. Copyright Office.
- According to copyright law, a piece of work is published if you have sold, rented, leased, or lent the work to the public. Information technology is as well considered published if you lot accept offered copies to another political party for purpose of further distribution, public performance, or public display.^[17]
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Know your rights. Every bit the owner of a copyright, you have the exclusive right to exercise, or to qualify someone else to do, the following, bailiwick to specific limitations:^[eighteen]
- Reproduce the piece of work.
- Create new works based on the original work by altering it, changing it to another form, or building on it in some way. (These are known as "derivative" works.)
- Distribute copies of the work.
- Publicly display or perform the work.
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Learn about boosted rights in visual arts. Subject to "off-white utilize", an writer of a work of visual fine art has additional rights of attribution and integrity, for his or her lifetime, including:
- The right to claim authorship and to forestall false attribution of authorship in other works.
- The right to forbid attribution of authorship for his or her works that have been mutilated or distorted in ways prejudicial to the reputation of the writer.
- Sure limited rights to preclude the intentional destruction or mutilation of the work.
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1

Upload depression-resolution images. In the internet age, many artists use the internet to display or promote images of their work. If you program on doing this, i mode to protect against unauthorized use is to only upload low-resolution images of your art.^[19] This allows you to promote your work online by showing people what you've made, while at the same time preventing less-than-reputable individuals from obtaining clear, full-size copies.
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Watermark your images. Using an image editor, place a translucent marking identifying the work as yours conspicuously across the image.^[20] This fashion, anyone who obtains a re-create volition not exist able to distribute it or use it freely without everyone who views it knowing where it came from.
- You can besides consider adding your name to the filename when you upload an image.^[21]
- There are other technical measures for marker your digital files with searchable markers, and fifty-fifty for preventing any unauthorized copying or distribution, if y'all are willing to add the necessary restrictions on customer access.
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Add a copyright notice. You can besides obtain a psychological protection of your works past placing a copyright notice on them in a corner or other discrete, withal clearly visible, space. Use the copyright symbol (©), followed by your name and the yr the work was created.^[22] This should at to the lowest degree serve as a signal that the work is yours, and that yous intend to protect it by the copyright that automatically triggered when you created the work.
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Pursue removal of unauthorized copies. Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), the owner of a copyright may file an official find for "takedown" of unauthorized copies existence distributed on a server in the U.s.. The notice is sent to the "registered copyright amanuensis" for the online service provider of the website and they must arrange for timely takedown of the works to avert being sued.
- The online service provider is immune from lawsuit for infringement if they follow the required steps of DMCA.
- The works may exist restored online if the service provider receives a proper counter-notification from the user who posted the allegedly infringing materials. You lot would then demand to sue the user for a federal restraining order. ^[23]
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Annals your copyright and sue infringers. In one case you have discovered infringement, been unable to get them to stop with warnings and complaints, you may register your copyright (within one month) and sue for amercement (including statutory damages), attorneys' fees, and a permanent injunction. ^[24]

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If you have any questions nearly or issues with your copyright registration, contact the U.S. Copyright Part at its toll-free number—(877) 476-0778—between 8:00am and 8:00pm Eastern Standard Time.^[25]
The current processing time for copyright registrations filed through eCO is up to 8 months, and the current processing time for paper registrations is upwardly to 13 months.^[26]
Generally, a copyright on a U.s.a. work created and published after 1977 will concluding for the life of the author, plus an boosted 70 years.^[27] Determining the elapsing for works created or published prior to that can be complicated, other than works published in the Usa prior to 1923.
If you would prefer to file on newspaper, use the following forms provided by the U.S. Copyright Part: Form TX for literary works^[28], Form VA for visual-arts works^[29], Form PA for performing-arts works^[30], Form SR for sound recordings^[31], and Form SE for unmarried serials.^[32] Be sure to read the attached instructions before filling out the course.

Registering a work of fine art does non provide "blanket protection" for similar creations of yours. For example, if you lot copyright i piece of fine art in a series (east.g., one painting of a cityscape in a collection of cityscapes you have painted), only the work you have deposited with the U.Southward. Copyright Office is protected. You volition need to register the others separately. Notwithstanding, you could (in theory) endeavor to contend that an accused infringement is a "derivative piece of work" of your registered version.
There is no such matter every bit a "poor man'due south copyright," which involves placing your work into an envelope and mailing it to yourself, keeping the sealed envelope equally "proof" of authorship.^[33] This method provides little or no legal protection beyond having the dated re-create you already had before you lot sent it to yourself, proving just that you got bad advice.

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Commodity Summary X

To copyright your artwork, y'all can apply the U.S. Copyright Office's electronic registration arrangement, called eCO. First, visit the eCO portal online and create an business relationship. And then, click on "Register a New Claim" and fill out the application to copyright your artwork. When you're finished, pay the fee by entering your bank business relationship or credit card information. Finally, submit a re-create of your artwork through the eCO portal or via the mail. To larn how to protect your artwork from copyright infringement, ringlet downwards!

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