621.3 The Relationship Between the Author Created / Limitation of Claim Fields in the Online Application and the Relationship Between Spaces 2, 6 (A), and 6 (B) of the Paper Application
As a general rule, a claim to copyright is defined by the information provided in the Author Created field (in the case of an online application) or in the Nature of Authorship space (in the case of a paper application). Therefore, all of the material that the applicant intends to register should be identified in these fields/spaces.
If the work contains an appreciable amount of unclaimable material, the applicant should complete the Limitation of Claim fields/spaces in order to limit the claim to the new copyrightable material created by the author. In this case, the claim to copyright is defined by the information provided in the New Material Included field or the information provided in space 6 (B). Therefore, all of the material that the applicant intends to register should be described in this field/space. In such cases, the information that the applicant provides in the New Material Included field should be duplicated in the Author Created field. Likewise, the information that the applicant provides in space 6 (B) should be duplicated in the Nature of Authorship space.
NOTE: The applicant should complete the New Material Included field of the online application or space 6 (B) of the paper application only when unclaimable material has been excluded from the claim in the Material Excluded field of the online application or in space 6 (A) of the paper application. If no material has been excluded from the claim, the applicant should not complete this portion of the application.
See Corrections and Amplifications of Copyright Registrations; Applications for Supplementary Registration, 63 Fed. Reg. 59,235, 59,235 (Nov. 3, 1998) (“The Copyright Office follows the general policy of requiring all authors and copyright claimants to supply information, consistent with 17 U.S.C. § 409, concerning the authorship being claimed in the application for registration.”).