damages. See 17 U.S.C. § 504(c)(1) ("For the purposes of this subsection, all the parts of a compilation or derivative work constitute one work."); 17 U.S.C. § 101 ("The term 'compilation' includes collective works."). Consequently, registering a number of self- contained works that appear on a website together as a compilation, collective work, or derivative work may have significant consequences in a copyright infringement action. For example, when a website consisting predominantly of photographs is registered as a compilation, a court may issue only one award of statutory damages for all the photographs covered by that registration. That is not necessarily the case, however, if the photographs are (i) unpublished and are registered as an unpublished collection (if no selection or arrangement is claimed), or (ii) are published and are registered using the group registration option for groups of published photographs. See 37 C.F.R. § 202.3(b)(4), (b)(10). Thus, if the applicant only intents to register individual works on a website, such as an unpublished collection of photographs the applicant may want to include a statement in the application that the claimant claims no authorship in the selection, coordination, and/or arrangement of works within the website. When completing an online application this statement may be provided in the Note to Copyright Office field. When completing a paper application it may be provided in a cover letter.
For information concerning unpublished collections and the group registration options for published photographs, see Chapter 1100, Sections 1106 and 1116. For a discussion of derivative works, compilations, and collective works, see Chapter 500, Sections 507 through 509. For a general discussion of publication issues involving website content, see Section 1008.3.
1009 Application Tips for Websites and Website Content
This Section provides basic information on how to complete an online application or paper application for a website or website content, as well as terms to use and terms to avoid when describing the authorship in such works.
For detailed information on how to complete an application, see Chapter 600.
1009.1 Type of Work
Many websites contain multiple forms of authorship, including text, images, artwork, musical works, sound recordings, videogames, computer programs, audiovisual works, among other types of works. Identifying the type of work that will be submitted to the U.S. Copyright Office is the first step in completing an application.
The Register of Copyrights has prescribed six classes of works that may be registered with the Office. The applicant should select the class of work that is most appropriate for the type of content that the applicant intends to register. When completing an online application, the applicant should select the appropriate class from the drop down menu marked Type of Work. When completing a paper application, the applicant should use the form that has been designated for the type of content that appears in the work.
• Literary Works: When completing an online application, the applicant should select "Literary Work" if the content primarily contains nondramatic text, such as articles, blog entries, or the like, or if the content primary consists of computer
Chapter 1000 : 28
12/22/2014
