A copyright gives an author the limited exclusive right to exploit his or her original work of authorship in many ways such as making copies of the work, distributing the work, displaying the work publicly, performing the work publicly, or allowing derivative works to be created based on the original copyrighted work.
Under U.S. copyright law, the creator of an original work is the owner of its copyright unless there is a written agreement where the creator assigns the copyright to another person or entity, such as a music publisher.
Musical works and sound recordings are separately protected under copyright law.
To register a copyright, you can go through the U.S. Copyright Office’s online Registration Portal here.
- Please note: You may register up to 10 unpublished works on the same application, but you must select “Group of Unpublished Works” when you create the application.
You may also submit via mail by filling out the forms found here. The average processing time for a copyright is 3.2 months. Learn more about U.S. copyright process here.