Questions regarding publishing work

[breakaway]

1. what constitutes publishing something?
2. I notice that for a VA form, a published item needs 2 copies while an unpublished item needs just 1. So what happens if it's not published at first, I register copyright, and then afterwards I decide to publish it? Would I have to register again?

 

[quincy]

Publishing a work means to distribute copies to the public or to display to the public your copyrighted work. Hanging your painting on the wall of a gallery is to publish your work. Displaying your work on a website is to publish your work.

You only need to register your work once.

 

[breakaway]

Thanks for your reply.

So is there any advantage/disadvantage in terms of copyright if I register it as published vs non-published?

 

[quincy]

Whether you register your work or not, your work is still copyrighted. But there are some advantages to registering your work before publishing.

If you publish your work first, before registering it, and your work is infringed, you would need to register it before you could sue for infringement, and the infringer could always claim "innocent infringement" (or that he was unaware the material was copyrighted). Plus, someone could always "steal" your work and register it as their own, and you would have to battle copyright out in court. If you register your work before you publish it, however, which is what I recommend, you have a legal edge in any infringement suit and it eliminates the risk of anyone else registering it and claiming it as their own.

 

[breakaway]

I guess what I don't understand is why they have different requirements for publish vs non-publish. I mean, if everything is copyrighted regardless, why do they even want to know if it is published or not?

 

[quincy]

The reason for needing to know whether a work is published or unpublished is because of the differences, in the copyright terms and the times of entry of a copyrighted work into the public domain, between published works and unpublished works. An unpublished work, for instance, has a copyright term of the life of the author plus 70 years.

(caution: I am about to do some math here, which is not an area of expertise for me...so correct my figures if I am wrong ).

Let's say that the author was born in 1902 and created the work when he was 20 (in 1922) and published it. The work would now be in the public domain, as all work published before 1923 is in the public domain. Say, however, that the work was created by this 20 year old in 1922 but never published. The author then lives to be 100. His unpublished work would not be in the public domain until 2072 (the life of the author plus 70 years).