616.3 Completing the Application: Author’s Year of Birth and Death
If the applicant chooses to provide the author’s year of birth in an online application, the applicant should provide only the author’s birth year. The online system will not accept an entry that contains the month, day, and year that the author was born. Likewise, if the author is deceased, the applicant should list only the year the author died, rather than the month, day, and year of the author’s death.
If the applicant chooses to provide the author’s year of birth in a paper application, the applicant should enter only the author’s birth year in the space marked Year Born. If the applicant gives the month, day, and year of birth, the certificate of registration and online record will reflect only the year of birth. If the author is deceased, the applicant should list only the author’s year of death in the space marked Year Died. If the applicant gives the month, day, and year of death, the certificate of registration and online record will reflect only the year of death.
If the applicant cannot determine the exact year of birth and/or death, the applicant may provide a good faith estimate qualified by the phrase “on or about,” “approximately,” or the like. When completing an online application, this statement may be provided in the Note to Copyright Office field. In a paper application this statement may be provided on the application itself or in a cover letter. In both cases, the registration specialist will add an annotation to the registration record, such as: “Regarding author information: Applicant states author’s year of birth is ‘approximately 1952.'”