1116.7 Photographs That Do Not Satisfy the Group Registration Requirements
If the applicant is unable to use this group registration option, it may be possible to register a group of photographs by using the group registration option for contributions to periodicals. See Section 1115.
If the photographs have not been published, it may be possible to register them as an unpublished collection. See Chapter 1100, Section 1106.
Alternatively, the applicant may register a particular photograph on an individual basis. Specifically, the applicant may prepare a separate application, filing fee, and deposit for each photograph and may submit these items through the electronic registration system or with a paper application. For guidance on registering an individual photograph, see Chapter 900, Section 909.
1117 Databases
This Section discusses the U.S. Copyright Office's current practices and procedures for registering a group of updates or revisions to a database.
This group registration option may be used to register a specific version of a database that existed on a particular date and/or the subsequent updates or revisions to that database within a three-month period. It may be used to register a group of updates or revisions to a single-file or a multi-file database, regardless of whether prior versions of the database have been registered before.
This Section also discusses the Office's current practices and procedures for registering updates or revisions to a database that predominantly consists of photographs.
As discussed above, the Office allows applicants to register groups of photographs, provided that certain requirements have been met. The procedures for registering a group of published photographs are discussed in Section 1116, the procedures for registering photographs that have been published as a contribution to a periodical are discussed in Section 1115, while the procedures for registering a group of unpublished photographs are discussed in Chapter 1100, Section 1106. Individual photographers may use any of these options to register their images, but they cannot use the group registration option for photographic databases, even if their images have been included in a database that consists predominantly of photographs. The group registration option for photographic databases is only available for database owners, such as stock photography agencies and other copyright owners that wish to register the authorship involved in creating the database, as well as the photographs within the database that were authored by or transferred to the copyright claimant. See Deposit Requirements for Registration of Automated Databases that Predominantly Consist of Photographs, 77 Fed. Reg. 40,268, 40,269 & n.l (July 9, 2012).
Databases pose special problems for the Office because they are constantly changing and the updates or revisions typically contain small increments of information. Due to the processing costs and administrative burdens involved with examining these types of works, the Office applies this regulation narrowly and does not apply this group registration option to other groups of related works. In particular, this option cannot be
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