Whether you register your work or not is not a requirement of the government. However they provide a number of benefits if you do. The registration process takes certain facts of the particular copyright and makes them publicly known. The benefits of registering a copyright are listed below for your convenience.
• The process lets you make a public disclosure of the claim of copyright. Nobody can claim afterwards that they were not aware of it. Thus you can have no innocent infringement defenders
• No infringement suits can be filed unless a registration is done prior. It helps you with lawsuits.
• If you register within a 5 year period, then it affords you protection by providing prima facie evidence that the copyright is valid and that the certificate is factually correct.
• If the author gets his or her work registered in the 3 months after the publication of their material or before there is any infringement, then the owner of the copyright will be able to claim statutory damages and attorney's fees. Thus it is quite advantageous to register. If you do it after the onslaught of an infringement suit you would only be able to get actual damages and profits for the period of time.
• When a product is registered, the owner can also file the information with the US Customs. They can in turn prevent the importation of goods that were not complying with US guidelines. The copyright registration prevents that.
The author or other authorized people can register a copyright these days at any time during its life. Previously it had to be done at the time of publishing. You may at your desire register a different version of the same material at any time; some people choose to do that.
Copyright registration thus is good to do. A number of problems are avoided when you take it. It is better than running around wondering what you are going to do, if it comes time to sue someone for infringement. It also prevents them from saying they did it innocently.
Binny Satin
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