618.7 (A) Asserting a Claim to Copyright in a Collective Work
If the applicant intends to register the compilation authorship involved in creating the collective work as a whole, the applicant should describe that authorship on the Authors screen in the field marked Author Created/Other. Currently, the total amount of text that may be provided in the Author Created/Other field is limited to 100 characters. If more space is required, the applicant should provide the additional information in the Note to Copyright Office field.
When completing a paper application, the applicant should provide a brief statement in space 2 under the heading marked Nature of Authorship that describes the compilation authorship that the applicant intends to register.
As a general rule, if the applicant states “collective work” the registration specialist may register the claim. The specialist may register the claim if the applicant states “compilation,” provided that the selection, coordination, and/or arrangement authorship that the applicant intends to register is clearly evident from the deposit copy(ies). The specialist also may register the claim if the applicant states “compilation of ” and specifies the type of contributions that appear within the collective work.
Example:
• Online application for a journal containing dozens of articles, photographs, and illustrations.
Author Created/Other: Compilation of articles, photographs, and illustrations.
If the selection, coordination, and/or arrangement authorship is not clear from the deposit copy(ies), the registration specialist may communicate with the applicant. In such cases, the specialist may ask the applicant to provide a more specific authorship statement using the guidelines set forth in Section 618.6.
For representative examples that demonstrate how to complete the Author Created field and the Nature of Authorship space in an application to register a collective work, see Section 618.7 (D).