611 Year of Completion / Year in Which Creation of This Work Was Completed
To register a work of authorship with the U.S. Copyright Office, the applicant must identify the year that the work was created. 17 U.S.C. § 409 (7). A work is considered created when it is fixed in a copy or phonorecord for the first time. If the work was prepared over a period of time, the portion or portions of the work that existed in a fixed form on a particular date constitute the work that has been created as of that date. 17 U.S.C. § 101 (definition of “created”). The year of creation is particularly important in the case of a work made for hire, an anonymous work, or a pseudonymous work, because this date may be used to calculate the term of the copyright. 17 U.S.C. § 302 (C).