Register a Group of Unpublished Works
The Copyright Office allows registration of groups of unpublished works by submitting 10 titles per application.
Copyright Office Rules
- All Titles in the group must have the same Author or same Joint Authors
- The Author(s) must also be the Claimant(s). ***
- All works in the group must not be published.
- The works in the group must all be the same type of work (e.g.. all illustrations).
What does “published” mean?
For registration, the Copyright Office asks whether the work(s) being submitted are published or unpublished. This presents two questions for many customers. The first is understanding the legal meaning of “published,” and the second (sometimes) is trying to remember when that work was first published, which is the date the Copyright Office wants to know.
While the meaning of “published” is a long and complicated tale, what we tell customers is that publication typically involves offering to distribute copies of the work to the general public, whether for money or not. The question of “publication” may involve the volume or reach to a general versus a limited audience, and if you are unsure, you should seek legal counsel. Typically, display of a work (e.g., on a website or in a gallery) is not considered publication. See the Glossary entry.
As for remembering when a work was published, do your best. The good news: thanks to a ruling by the Supreme Court, as long as you make a good-faith effort to get the right answer, the registration will remain valid even if it turns out you guessed wrong.
RightsClick® Advantages
- Create a single Project with more than 10 Titles for this kind of registration, and the system will automatically process the correct number of applications.
- RightsClick automatically complies with Copyright Office rules.
- RightsClick automatically assigns the case number(s) to the correct Titles.
- RightsClick processes applications quickly (often the same day).
- Your portfolio is updated with case and registration numbers.
- RightsClick provides responsive support.
RightsClick Projects
Titles in RightsClick are uploaded into Projects. For groups of unpublished works, you can add as many titles as you want (based on your own organization purposes). When you submit the whole project as a group registration, RightsClick will automatically use the correct number of applications. (e.g., 27 titles = 3 applications).
File Size & Types
It is important that all the elements of a visual work are visible in the deposit copy submitted for registration. For this reason, some more detailed images may require large file sizes, but most do not.
A typical file size should be 2mb or less.
Groups should be the same file type.
Creating a Project in RightsClick
USCO Registration with RightsClick
Naming Your Titles
Each image is referred to in RightsClick and by the Copyright Office as a Title. Title names will by default be the file names.
We urge the use of short, simple names. Fewer than 20 characters is great, but not required. You will want to name your Titles before uploading them into RightsClick..
Hard Rules
- Latin characters and numbers only.
- No punctuation other than underscores. Ampersands are death!
- Each Title in a group must have its own name. No extra credit for cleverness; that’s up to you.
Application Fees
The Copyright Office charges $85 for each group of unpublished works, and RightsClick charges a $15 service fee per application.
Use promo code: ITSMYWORK2025
Registering Sculpture, Painting, Jewelry etc.
Of course, it would be impractical (and expensive!) to send a sculpture, painting, jewelry, or other works of applied arts to the Copyright Office as deposit copies. Fortunately, you don’t need to do that. You may send photographs of these works. For group registration, you may send one photo of each title, or you may send one PDF for each title that includes several photos from various angles.
When registering these types of works through RightsClick, there are a couple of options.
Option One
Combine all the images of a single work into one PDF document and upload this document as your deposit copy. This method is required if you intend to register a group of these works. For instance, five unpublished sculptures may be registered as a group on one application, and you would upload five PDF files, each containing the images depicting one sculpture.
Option Two (for one title)
If you intend to register just one title using RightsClick, you can upload the individual photos into one RightsClick Project. Next, you would select the radio button to indicate that the photographs should be treated as a single work. This video shows these steps, which you can also download as a PDF.
Also read our blog post discussing the use of photographs to register these types of works.
We know this stuff gets confusing, and are glad to do our best to help. But we cannot offer legal advice.