Many people ask why register a work with the U.S. Copyright office if copyright ownership is automatic upon the creation of certain works.

The first advantage is that registration with the U.S. Copyright office provides a date certain that can be referenced to determine when you became the owner of the work, just in case someone else claims to be the owner of the same work.

While this can also be accomplished by registering your work with the Writer's Guild of America (west) [http://www.wgawregistry.org/webrss/], there are other advantages that can be obtained by registering your work with the U.S. Copyright office, which cannot be obtained by registering your work with the Writer's Guild of America (west).

First of all, before you can file a lawsuit against someone for copyright infringement of a work you created in the U.S., you must register the work with the U.S. Copyright office.

Second, registering your work with the U.S. Copyright office can entitle you to not only actual damages, but also additional damages and attorney's fees, if a lawsuit is filed against someone who is violating your copyright protection.

Third, registering your work with the U.S. Copyright office allows you to record the registration with the U.S. Customs service, so you can have protection against the importation of works that violate your copyright protection.

For more information, with regard to registering your work with the U.S. Copyright office, go to: http://www.copyright.gov/register/.

Click on http://www.copyright.gov/title17/ to go to the page at the U.S. Copyright office that sets forth legal rights and remedies with regard to copyright law. By clicking on the TXT link associated with each area of subject matter, you will be given additional links, in each area, to choose from. Otherwise, if you click on the PDF link, you will have to scroll the PDF document to find specific information.

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