616.1(A) Year of Birth Not Required for Works Made for Hire
As discussed in Section 614.1(D), the author’s year of birth should not be provided if the work was created as a work made for hire.
616.1(B) Privacy Concerns
Because registration records are open to the public, an applicant should not disclose the author’s year of birth on the application if the author does not wish to make that information public. If the applicant discloses the author’s date of birth on the application, the year of birth will appear on the certificate of registration, which will be made available to the public upon request. In addition, the author’s year of birth will appear in the online public record for the work, which may be accessed by anyone who searches for the work on the Office’s website. The Office will not remove the author’s year of birth from the registration record once a certificate of registration has been issued.
For a general discussion of privacy issues, see Chapter 200, Section 205.
616.2 The Author’s Year of Death
When completing an application to register a work with the U.S. Copyright Office, the applicant will be asked if the author of the work is deceased. The applicant should provide a year of death if the work was created by a natural person who is deceased as of the date that the application is filed. If the work was created by two or more authors, the applicant should provide a year of death for each individual who is deceased. 17 U.S.C. § 409(2). The author’s year of death is required because the term of copyright for certain unpublished works created before 1978 and for all works created after 1978 is based on the year that the author died (unless the work is a work made for hire, an anonymous work, or a pseudonymous work). 17 U.S.C. §§ 302(a), (b); 303(a).
As a general rule, the registration specialist will not question a year of death unless it is obviously wrong (e.g., a year of death occurring before the year that the work was created).
If the applicant fails to provide a year of death in the application and if the information in the deposit copy(ies) or elsewhere in the registration materials indicate that the author may be deceased, the registration specialist may communicate with the applicant if that information could be used to determine the term of copyright.
Examples:
- An application is submitted for a photograph. Jane Freeman is named as the author and The Estate of Jane Freeman is named as the copyright claimant. Because the author appears to be deceased, the registration specialist will ask the applicant to provide the author’s year of death.
- An application for an autobiography titled Out of Australia names Georgette Firth as the author and states that the work
