When You Might Not Bother Registering

If what you're publishing has no value to anyone but you, you may want to just place a copyright notice on the material and not bother to register. But in most situations, if your work is valuable enough to publish, it's valuable enough to register.

How to Register a Copyright

Registering a copyright registration is a simple process; you don't need an attorney. All you need to do is to fill out a brief application form, which requires some basic information about the work, including:

• the title of the work
• who created the work an when, and
• who owns the copyright.

You send the application, a small fee (usually $30), and one or two copies of all or part of the copyrighted work to the U.S. Copyright Office in Washington, D.C. Nolo's book Web & Software Development, by Stephen Fishman, contains all of the necessary forms and step-by-step instructions for applying for copyright registration.