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For
all work sold in the United States registering your copyrights is
an incredibly effective tool in preventing copyright infringement.
If and only if a copyright is registered before an infringement occurs
are you entitled to have your attorneys fees paid by the other side
if you prevail. You can also obtain statutory damages of up to $150,000
per infringement. If you haven't registered your copyright at all
you are precluded from filing a suit of any kind. If one registers
after they become aware of an infringement, while they can file suit
they are limited to actual damages which are the royalties you might
have lost and the profits of the infringer attributable to the infringement.
If the infringement is vast and successful, then there might be a
large pot at the end of the rainbow. However, if you had caught the
infringement earlier on or it is just of a modest size, the cost of
prosecuting your claim can exceed your recovery. Infringers know this,
and go after those images that they believe are not registered knowing
that it's not going to be worth your while to go after them. It provides
them with de facto immunity. Filing copyright registrations is inexpensive
and simple. An application costs only $30. It might be useful to have
an attorney assist on the first application to prevent errors. However,
by and larger this is not an activity in which you need to hire legal
counsel (except, if there are issues as to work for hire or derivative
works). If a work is not published (has not been offered for sale)
you can register multiples images on a single application with just
one $30 fee. The copyright office website is full of free useful information
and advice and has answers to almost any question you could conceive
of. They also have the forms you need, which are downloadable.
Their website is www.copyright.gov/register/
. Also, our general counsel, Joshua Kaufman, Esq. has published numerous
articles on copyright registration and its benefits. They can be found
at his website, www.jjkaufman.com.
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