Copyrights - 17 USC Section 408

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01/19/04

Sec. 408. Copyright registration in general

(a) Registration Permissive. - At any time during the subsistence
of the first term of copyright in any published or unpublished work
in which the copyright was secured before January 1, 1978, and
during the subsistence of any copyright secured on or after that
date, the owner of copyright or of any exclusive right in the work
may obtain registration of the copyright claim by delivering to the
Copyright Office the deposit specified by this section, together
with the application and fee specified by sections 409 and 708.
Such registration is not a condition of copyright protection.
(b) Deposit for Copyright Registration. - Except as provided by
subsection (c), the material deposited for registration shall
include -
(1) in the case of an unpublished work, one complete copy or
phonorecord;
(2) in the case of a published work, two complete copies or
phonorecords of the best edition;
(3) in the case of a work first published outside the United
States, one complete copy or phonorecord as so published;
(4) in the case of a contribution to a collective work, one
complete copy or phonorecord of the best edition of the
collective work.
Copies or phonorecords deposited for the Library of Congress under
section 407 may be used to satisfy the deposit provisions of this
section, if they are accompanied by the prescribed application and
fee, and by any additional identifying material that the Register
may, by regulation, require. The Register shall also prescribe
regulations establishing requirements under which copies or
phonorecords acquired for the Library of Congress under subsection
(e) of section 407, otherwise than by deposit, may be used to
satisfy the deposit provisions of this section.
(c) Administrative Classification and Optional Deposit. -
(1) The Register of Copyrights is authorized to specify by
regulation the administrative classes into which works are to be
placed for purposes of deposit and registration, and the nature
of the copies or phonorecords to be deposited in the various
classes specified. The regulations may require or permit, for
particular classes, the deposit of identifying material instead
of copies or phonorecords, the deposit of only one copy or
phonorecord where two would normally be required, or a single
registration for a group of related works. This administrative
classification of works has no significance with respect to the
subject matter of copyright or the exclusive rights provided by
this title.
(2) Without prejudice to the general authority provided under
clause (1), the Register of Copyrights shall establish
regulations specifically permitting a single registration for a
group of works by the same individual author, all first published
as contributions to periodicals, including newspapers, within a
twelve-month period, on the basis of a single deposit,
application, and registration fee, under the following
conditions:
(A) if the deposit consists of one copy of the entire issue
of the periodical, or of the entire section in the case of a
newspaper, in which each contribution was first published; and
(B) if the application identifies each work separately,
including the periodical containing it and its date of first
publication.
(3) As an alternative to separate renewal registrations under
subsection (a) of section 304, a single renewal registration may
be made for a group of works by the same individual author, all
first published as contributions to periodicals, including
newspapers, upon the filing of a single application and fee,
under all of the following conditions:
(A) the renewal claimant or claimants, and the basis of claim
or claims under section 304(a), is the same for each of the
works; and
(B) the works were all copyrighted upon their first
publication, either through separate copyright notice and
registration or by virtue of a general copyright notice in the
periodical issue as a whole; and
(C) the renewal application and fee are received not more
than twenty-eight or less than twenty-seven years after the
thirty-first day of December of the calendar year in which all
of the works were first published; and
(D) the renewal application identifies each work separately,
including the periodical containing it and its date of first
publication.
(d) Corrections and Amplifications. - The Register may also
establish, by regulation, formal procedures for the filing of an
application for supplementary registration, to correct an error in
a copyright registration or to amplify the information given in a
registration. Such application shall be accompanied by the fee
provided by section 708, and shall clearly identify the
registration to be corrected or amplified. The information
contained in a supplementary registration augments but does not
supersede that contained in the earlier registration.
(e) Published Edition of Previously Registered Work. -
Registration for the first published edition of a work previously
registered in unpublished form may be made even though the work as
published is substantially the same as the unpublished version.

HISTORICAL AND REVISION NOTES
HOUSE REPORT NO. 94-1476
Permissive Registration. Under section 408(a), registration of a
claim to copyright in any work whether published or unpublished,
can be made voluntarily by "the owner of copyright or of any
exclusive right in the work" at any time during the copyright term.
The claim may be registered in the Copyright Office by depositing
the copies, phonorecords, or other material specified by subsection
(b) and (c), together with an application and fee. Except where,
under section 405(a), registration is made to preserve a copyright
that would otherwise be invalidated because of omission of the
notice, registration is not a condition of copyright protection.
Deposit for Purpose of Copyright Registration. In general, and
subject to various exceptions, the material to be deposited for
copyright registration consists of one complete copy or phonorecord
of an unpublished work, and two complete copies or phonorecords of
the best edition in the case of a published work. Section 408(b)
provides special deposit requirements in the case of a work first
published abroad ("one complete copy or phonorecord as so
published") and in the case of a contribution to a collective work
("one complete copy or phonorecord of the best edition of the
collective work"). As a general rule the deposit of more than a
tear sheet or similar fraction of a collective work is needed to
identify the contribution properly and to show the form in which it
was published. Where appropriate as in the case of collective works
such as multivolume encyclopedias, multipart newspaper editions,
and works that are rare or out of print, the regulations issued by
the Register under section 408(c) can be expected to make
exceptions or special provisions.
With respect to works published in the United States, a single
deposit could be used to satisfy the deposit requirements of
section 407 and the registration requirements of section 408, if
the application and fee for registration are submitted at the same
time and are accompanied by "any additional identifying material"
required by regulations. To serve this dual purpose the deposit and
registration would have to be made simultaneously; if a deposit
under section 407 had already been made, an additional deposit
would be required under section 408. In addition, since deposit for
the Library of Congress and registration of a claim to copyright
serve essentially different functions, section 408(b) authorizes
the Register of Copyrights to issue regulations under which deposit
of additional material, needed for identification of the work in
which copyright is claimed, could be required in certain cases.
Administrative Classification. It is important that the statutory
provisions setting forth the subject matter of copyright be kept
entirely separate from any classification of copyrightable works
for practical administrative purposes. Section 408(c)(1) thus
leaves it to the Register of Copyrights to specify "the
administrative classes into which works are to be placed for
purposes of deposit and registration," and makes clear that this
administrative classification "has no significance with respect to
the subject matter of copyright or the exclusive rights provided by
this title."
Optional Deposit. Consistent with the principle of administrative
flexibility underlying all of the deposit and registration
provisions, subsection (c) of section 408 also gives the Register
latitude in adjusting the type of material deposited to the needs
of the registration system. The Register is authorized to issue
regulations specifying "the nature of the copies of phonorecords to
be deposited in the various classes" and, for particular classes,
to require or permit deposit of identifying material rather than
copies or phonorecords, deposit of one copy or phonorecord rather
than two, or, in the case of a group of related works, a single
rather than a number of separate registrations. Under this
provision the Register could, where appropriate, permit deposit of
phonorecords rather than notated copies of musical compositions,
allow or require deposit of print-outs of computer programs under
certain circumstances, or permit deposit of one volume of an
encyclopedia for purposes of registration of a single contribution.
Where the copies or phonorecords are bulky, unwieldly, easily
broken, or otherwise impractical to file and retain as records
identifying the work registered, the Register would be able to
require or permit the substitute deposit of material that would
better serve the purpose of identification. Cases of this sort
might include, for example, billboard posters, toys and dolls,
ceramics and glassware, costume jewelry, and a wide range of
three-dimensional objects embodying copyrighted material. The
Register's authority would also extend to rare or extremely
valuable copies which would be burdensome or impossible to deposit.
Deposit of one copy or phonorecord rather than two would probably
be justifiable in the case of most motion pictures, and in any case
where the Library of Congress has no need for the deposit and its
only purpose is identification.
The provision empowering the Register to allow a number of
related works to be registered together as a group represents a
needed and important liberalization of the law now in effect. At
present the requirement for separate registrations where related
works or parts of a work are published separately has created
administrative problems and has resulted in unnecessary burdens and
expenses on authors and other copyright owners. In a number of
cases the technical necessity for separate applications and fees
has caused copyright owners to forego copyright altogether.
Examples of cases where these undesirable and unnecessary results
could be avoided by allowing a single registration include the
various editions or issues of a daily newspaper, a work published
in serial installments, a group of related jewelry designs, a group
of photographs by one photographer, a series of greeting cards
related to each other in some way, or a group of poems by a single
author.
Single Registration. Section 408(c)(2) directs the Register of
Copyrights to establish regulations permitting under certain
conditions a single registration for a group of works by the same
individual author, all first published as contributions to
periodicals, including newspapers, within a twelve-month period, on
the basis of a single deposit, application, and registration fee.
It is required that each of the works as first published have a
separate copyright notice, and that the name of the owner of
copyright in the work, (or an abbreviation by which the name can be
recognized, or a generally known alternative designation of the
owner) is the same in each notice. It is further required that the
deposit consist of one copy of the entire issue of the periodical,
or of the entire section in the case of a newspaper, in which each
contribution is first published. Finally, the application shall
identify each work separately, including the periodical containing
it and its date of first publication.
Section 408(c)(3) provides under certain conditions an
alternative to the separate renewal registrations of subsection
(a). If the specified conditions are met, a single renewal
registration may be made for a group of works by the same
individual author, all first published as contributions to
periodicals, including newspapers, upon the filing of a single
application and fee. It is required that the renewal claimant or
claimants, and the basis of claim or claims under section 304(a),
is the same for each of the works; that the works were all
copyrighted upon their first publication, either through separate
copyright notice and registration or by virtue of a general
copyright notice in the periodical issue as a whole; that the
renewal application and fee are received not more than twenty-eight
or less than twenty-seven years after December 31 of the calendar
year in which all of the works were first published; and that the
renewal application identifies each work separately, including the
periodical containing it and its date of first publication.
Corrections and Amplifications. Another unsatisfactory aspect of
the present law is the lack of any provision for correcting or
amplifying the information given in a completed registration.
Subsection (d) of section 408 would remedy this by authorizing the
Register to establish "formal procedures for the filing of an
application for supplementary registration," in order to correct an
error or amplify the information in a copyright registration. The
"error" to be corrected under subsection (d) is an error by the
applicant that the Copyright Office could not have been expected to
note during its examination of the claim; where the error in a
registration is the result of the Copyright Office's own mistake or
oversight, the Office can make the correction on its own initiative
and without recourse to the "supplementary registration" procedure.
Under subsection (d), a supplementary registration is subject to
payment of a separate fee and would be maintained as an independent
record, separate and apart from the record of the earlier
registration it is intended to supplement. However, it would be
required to identify clearly "the registration to be corrected or
amplified" so that the two registrations could be tied together by
appropriate means in the Copyright Office records. The original
registration would not be expunged or cancelled; as stated in the
subsection: "The information contained in a supplementary
registration augments but does not supersede that contained in the
earlier registration."
Published Edition of Previously Registered Work. The present
statute requires that, where a work is registered in unpublished
form, it must be registered again when it is published, whether or
not the published edition contains any new copyrightable material.
Under the bill there would be no need to make a second registration
for the published edition unless it contains sufficient added
material to be considered a "derivative work" or "compilation"
under section 103.
On the other hand, there will be a number of cases where the
copyright owner, although not required to do so, would like to have
registration made for the published edition of the work, especially
since the owner will still be obliged to deposit copies or
phonorecords of it in the Copyright Office under section 407. From
the point of view of the public there are advantages in allowing
the owner to do so, since registration for the published edition
will put on record the facts about the work in the form in which it
is actually distributed to the public. Accordingly, section 408(e),
which is intended to accomplish this result, makes an exception to
the general rule against allowing more than one registration for
the same work.
AMENDMENTS
1992 - Subsec. (a). Pub. L. 102-307 substituted "At any time
during the subsistence of the first term of copyright in any
published or unpublished work in which the copyright was secured
before January 1, 1978, and during the subsistence of any copyright
secured on or after that date," for "At any time during the
subsistence of copyright in any published or unpublished work,".
1988 - Subsec. (a). Pub. L. 100-568, Sec. 9(a)(1), substituted
"Such" for "Subject to the provisions of section 405(a), such".
Subsec. (c)(2). Pub. L. 100-568, Sec. 9(a)(2), substituted "the
following conditions:" for "all of the following conditions - ",
struck out subpar. (A) which read "if each of the works as first
published bore a separate copyright notice, and the name of the
owner of copyright in the work, or an abbreviation by which the
name can be recognized, or a generally known alternative
designation of the owner was the same in each notice; and", and
redesignated subpars. (B) and (C) as (A) and (B), respectively.
EFFECTIVE DATE OF 1992 AMENDMENT
Amendment by Pub. L. 102-307 effective June 26, 1992, but
applicable only to copyrights secured between January 1, 1964, and
December 31, 1977, and not affecting court proceedings pending on
June 26, 1992, with copyrights secured before January 1, 1964,
governed by section 304(a) of this title as in effect on the day
before June 26, 1992, except each reference to forty-seven years in
such provisions deemed to be 67 years, see section 102(g) of Pub.
L. 102-307, as amended, set out as a note under section 101 of this
title.
EFFECTIVE DATE OF 1988 AMENDMENT
Amendment by Pub. L. 100-568 effective Mar. 1, 1989, with any
cause of action arising under this title before such date being
governed by provisions in effect when cause of action arose, see
section 13 of Pub. L. 100-568, set out as a note under section 101
of this title.

Last modified: April 20, 2006

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