Why It Is Important to Register Your Work with the Copyright Office by Vivienne Diane Neal

Since many of our guest bloggers and visitors are self-publishing authors or are planning to write a book, I thought I would share this bit of information.

Recently, I received the following e-mail from a site that sells my book:

Hello, we have removed your document "Malicious Acts" because our text matching system determined that it was very similar to a work that has been marked as copyrighted and not permitted on Scribd.

Like all automated matching systems, our system is not perfect and occasionally makes mistakes. If you believe that your document is not infringing, please contact us at copyright@scribd.com and we will investigate the matter.

As stated in our terms of use, repeated incidents of copyright infringement will result in the deletion of your Scribd.com account and prohibit you from uploading material to Scribd.com in the future.

To prevent us from having to take these steps, please delete from scribd.com any material you have uploaded to which you do not own the necessary rights and refrain from uploading any material you are not entitled to upload.

For more information about Scribd.com's copyright policy, please read the Terms of Use located at http://www.scribd.com/terms.

I responded to Scribd by informing them that I had registered my book with the Copyright Office in 2011 and attached a copy of my Copyright Certificate, proving that I am the owner of the work. Up until now, I have not heard a word from the site.

This is why it is not enough to just place the copyright notice on your work, even though your work is supposed to be protected under the law. But I have always taken that extra step, especially if you bring legal action against any entity who claims to own your work, which will have to be registered in order to prove your case.

Registering your work with the Copyright Office can be done online or through snail mail. I would strongly recommend that you register your work online, which cost less and is faster than doing it though the US Postal Service. Because of safety measures, it may take up to a year before you receive your certificate, whereas if done online, your work is instantly registered once you submit it and pay the fee.

You can register an unpublished or published work. If you do register an unpublished work, you won’t have to register it again once your book is published.

For additional information on Copyright laws and to register your work, go to http://www.copyright.gov.

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