802.9 (F) The Material Excluded / New Material Included Fields and the Preexisting Material / Material Added to This Work Spaces
If the work being registered is a derivative work or a compilation of preexisting works, the use of the underlying works must be lawful and the preexisting material must be identified and excluded from the claim. When completing an online application, the applicant should provide this information in the Material Excluded and New Material Included fields. When completing a paper application, the applicant should provide this information in the Preexisting Material and Material Added to This Work space. For information on how to complete these portions of the application, see Chapter 600, Section 621.8.
In all cases, the applicant should provide a brief description of the new material that is being submitted for registration and the applicant should use an acceptable term to describe the author’s contributions to that material (e.g., music, lyrics, musical arrangement).
Example:
• Amy Addams creates new lyrics for a previously published song. The applicant should identify the previously published song in the Material Excluded field and should describe the “new lyrics” in the Author Created and New Material Included fields.
When describing new material that the author added to a derivative work or compilation, the applicant should avoid using ambiguous or unclear terms, such as providing the name of a musical instrument or referring to the physical object in which the work has been fixed.
As a general rule, the U.S. Copyright Office will accept statements that identify the material excluded from the claim and the new material included in the claim, unless they are contradicted by information provided elsewhere in the registration materials or unless the terms used to describe the authorship are otherwise unclear. For examples of unacceptable and unclear authorship terms, see Chapter 600, Section 618.8 (A).