Why Automatic Copyright Is Not Enough (The Registration Mistake)

Copyright protects your creative work. Creative doesn’t always mean artistic. For copyright, it means something written, drawn, sculpted, recorded, and more. Books, blog posts, training videos, original Instagram posts, jingles, marketing copy, whitepapers–those are all copyrightable material.

One of the cool things about copyright is that some copyright rights exist the instant you create the material. Who the author is and who owns the rights are subjects of some of my other posts. Unfortunately, these initial rights are limited. Relying only on them is a quick path to copyright cursedness.

Here’s the most important thing to do to avoid copyright terror and make the copyright rights a valuable business asset: You need to register your copyright with the U.S. Copyright Office to have the maximum rights, including the ability to sue for infringement in federal court and have documentation that supports internet takedowns of infringing material.

Registration is your first line of defense, especially against those zombie AI algorithms feeding off your content.

A registered copyright gives you proof of ownership that can be officially transferred if you want to sell it to someone else, or that can support licensing it to someone who wants to pay you money to use it