Page:Copyright Office Compendium 3rd Edition - Full.djvu/98

 : Chapter 500

501&emsp;What This Chapter Covers

This Chapter provides guidance on how to identify the work that the applicant intends to register with the U.S. Copyright Office. It explains how to identify the authorship that can be submitted for registration, and how to describe the  to copyright in that authorship, particularly if the work contains multiple forms of authorship, if it was created by multiple authors, if the authorship is owned by multiple copyright owners, or if the applicant intends to register only a portion of the authorship that appears in the work. In addition, this Chapter assists copyright owners, courts, and the general public in understanding the scope of a registered copyright claim.

When applying to register a work of authorship, it is crucial to correctly identify the work in which copyright is claimed, including the type of work, the author(s) who created that work, and the copyright owner who is entitled to claim copyright in that work. This Chapter provides a general overview of certain forms of authorship and ownership that are recognized under the copyright law, including, , , , and.

For a discussion of the Office’s practices and procedures for registering a claim to copyright, see the following chapters:

Chapter 500 : 4
 * For a general overview of the registration process, see.
 * For guidance in determining who may file an application and who may be named as the, see.
 * For a general overview of the applications that may be used to register a copyright claim, see.
 * For information on how to complete an application, see.
 * For information regarding the options for registering multiple works with one application, see.
 * For information concerning the requirements, see.
 * For information concerning the Copyright Office’s practices and procedures for evaluating copyrightable authorship, see . For guidance concerning the practices and procedures relating to specific types of works, see the following chapters:
 * For a discussion of, see.