Best Business Practices for Photographers [158]
Note that when you click into the box, this small checkmark is entered. This is the way that the LOC form handles a check for their check box. I'd prefer an X that fills it, but this certainly works. You'll note this is the same elsewhere in the form. Because it was not a WMFH, nor will any of your other registrations be, checking this once and then leaving it as your default is easy.
Figure 17.5
Figure 17.6 is also self-explanatory. However, if you are a foreign citizen living in the US, you can register your work for protection. For more information on limitations/restrictions for foreign citizens, see the LOC instructions for this field.
Figure 17.6
The form section in Figure 17.7 is obvious, and because you're interested in registering the work in your name, choose No for the contribution details. Note again the small checkmarks.
Figure 17.7
Figure 17.8 is again an obvious choice. Even if you're photographing jewelry design, you, as a photographer, are registering the photograph, not the design, nor the work of art, and so on. Enter the checkmark once and leave it.
Figure 17.8
Figure 17.9 obviously changes once a year. This is not when the work was published, but when the work was completed.
Figure 17.9
Figure 17.10 shows one other field that will change for each registration of published works. If unpublished, these fields are blank. However, if you are indicating group registration in Section 1, then you'll need to indicate the range. It does not need to be monthly. For example, you could enter April–June in the Month field and 28–11 in the Day field. The Month field is limited in the content, and the Day field is also limited, in the LOC version, to two characters. I have modified mine, which you can download, or you can do that yourself.
These dates should be the date of publication. Further, the Copyright Office will accept (and you should seriously consider including above the Date field) the terms "approximately," "not before," "not after," and "on or about." We have begun adding these additional descriptors and permanently including them on the registration form separate from the modifiable Month/Date fields. Adding in this information will provide for greater clarity should you wind up in court and the dates are challenged. I'll address the arguments of published versus unpublished and how I, in consultation with my attorney, derive the "date of publication" at the end of this chapter, in the section entitled "Definitions: Published versus Unpublished—the Debate."
Figure 17.10
Although the field in Figure 17.11, too, is obvious, here's a note to consider. You'll want to choose an address that will change as infrequently as possible. Further, there is a system within the Copyright Office to file a change of address form with them.
Figure 17.11
Here we are on Page 2, as you can see in Figure 17.12. It's a fairly easy back-of-the-form entry, and the main thing that will change is the date that accompanies your signature.
Figure 17.12
Figure 17.13 applies when you're trying to do advanced registration types beyond what I am hoping you'll achieve—a general registration of your work in the first place. There are numerous reasons why these fields are valuable and important; however, if you're doing anything other than choosing No, you'd do well to follow the instructions accompanying the form, available from the LOC website. In presenting this, I am taking the position that you are systematically registering work you shoot on assignment or on spec, that you are not registering work as published that you previously registered as unpublished, that you are the copyright claimant and that someone else (in other words, your agent or coauthor) did not previously register the work, and that you're not registering a retouched version of a work previously registered.
Figure 17.13
Figure 17.14 is applicable if you have a deposit account. I do, and it's under my name, but I've blanked the account number so hooligans don't start charging their registrations to my account. Set up