Registering a Copyright: A Practitioner's Guide to Applications, Deposits, and Group Registration
By Casey Scott McKay ·
This guide is the operational manual for getting a copyright registered: the sequence of decisions, the forms, the fees, the deposits, and the failure modes. It walks eleven stages, from the intake sheet that fixes the facts a practitioner cannot later change, through the hardest field on the application (whether and exactly when the work was published), the choice among the Standard and Single applications, unit-of-publication claims, and the thirteen group registration options at 37 C.F.R. 202.4, the authorship and claimant fields and the work-made-for-hire designation, limitation of claim for derivative works and licensed or AI-generated material, the deposit rules of Part 202 including the four trade-secret alternatives for computer source code, special handling under Section 201.3(d), and the refusal-and-reconsideration ladder that ends at the Copyright Review Board and then in district court. It carries one annotated example, a Chicago food photographer, her publisher client, and a Providence game studio, through every stage, and gives model language a practitioner can adapt for transfer statements, limitations of claim, AI disclaimers, special handling declarations, and a first request for reconsideration. Fee and timeline tables, three decision trees, and a closing list of the mistakes that actually cost money are included. The doctrine explaining why any of this matters lives in the companion article; this document assumes it and spends its length on execution.
IP and Technology > Copyright | Guide | Published 1 January 2025 - Updated 25 November 2025 | Casey Scott McKay - marksy.us
Summary. This is the operational manual for getting a copyright registered. Eleven stages, in order: fixing the facts on intake, deciding whether and exactly when the work was published, choosing among the Standard application, the Single application, a unit-of-publication claim, and the thirteen group options at 37 C.F.R. § 202.4, completing the authorship and claimant fields, designating work made for hire, limiting the claim for derivative, licensed, public domain, and AI-generated material, building a deposit that will survive litigation — including the four trade-secret alternatives for computer source code — paying and capturing the filing date, buying speed with special handling under 37 C.F.R. § 201.3(d), answering examiner correspondence, climbing the reconsideration ladder to the Copyright Review Board, and cleaning up afterward with a supplementary registration. One worked example runs through all of it. Model language, fee and timeline tables, and three decision trees are included. The doctrine that makes this worth doing is in the companion article and is not repeated here.
Keywords: copyright registration · standard application · single application · group registration · gruph · grpph · grtx · gruw · deposit requirements · 37 c.f.r. 202.20 · best edition · trade secret redaction source code · special handling · supplementary registration · form ca · limitation of claim · work made for hire · publication date · request for reconsideration · copyright review board
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