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So, you want to copyright your poetry, hu? Well, here is the information you will
need directly from the U.S. Copyright Office:
Claims to copyright in either published or unpublished poetry may be registered in the Copyright Office. Form TX should be used to apply for copyright registration for poems. To apply for registration, send the following material in the same envelope or package to the Register of Copyrights, Copyright Office, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20559:
1. A correctly completed application (application to be downloaded) form; and
2. A $20.00 nonrefundable filing fee for each application;
and
3. A nonreturnable deposit of the work to be registered.
Important Printing Instructions:
The forms should be printed head to head (top of page 2 is directly behind the top of page
1) using BOTH SIDES of a single sheet of paper. NOTE: Short forms are one sided. Dot matrix printer copies of the forms
are not acceptable. Inkjet printer copies of the forms require enlarging if you use the Shrink to Fit Page option. To achieve the
best quality copies of the application forms, it is recommended that you use a Laser Printer.
The forms submitted to the Copyright Office must be clear, legible, and on a good grade of 8.5-inch by 11-inch white paper. The quality of the copyright application forms submitted for registration directly affects the quality of the copyright registration certificate you receive. The Copyright Office produces completed registration certificates through an optical scanning system that utilizes an image scanned from the original application submitted. As a result copyright applications submitted that are of poor print quality will negatively affect the print quality of the copyright registration certificate you receive. For these reasons, the utmost effort should be made to submit the best quality application form possible.
The deposit requirements depend on whether the work has been published at the time of registration:
-- If the work is unpublished, one complete copy or
phonorecord.
-- If the work was first published in the United States on
or after January 1, 1978, two complete copies or
phonorecords of the best edition.
-- If the work was first published in the United States
before January 1, 1978, two complete copies or
phonorecords as first published.
-- If the work was first published outside of the United
States, one complete copy or phonorecord of the work as
first published.
-- If the work is a contribution to a collective work, and
published after January 1, 1978, one complete copy or
phonorecord of the best edition of the collective work.
Published collections of poetry and all of the copyrightable
elements of a unit of publication may be registered on a single
form with a single fee if all of the poems are owned by the same
copyright claimant.
Unpublished collections of two or more poems can be submitted for registration on a single form with a single fee and deposit of one complete copy or phonorecord only if all of the following conditions are met:
(1) the elements are assembled in an orderly form;
(2) the combined elements bear a single title identifying the
collection as a whole;
(3) the copyright claimant in all of the elements, and the
collection as a whole, is the same; and
(4) all of the elements are by the same author, or, if they
are by different authors, at least one of the authors has
contributed copyrightable authorship to each of the
elements.
Registration of an unpublished collection of compositions extends
to each copyrightable selection in the collection, but only the
collection title appears in the Copyright Office catalogs and
indexes.
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