Effective November 15, 2005, the US Copyright Office began accepting copyright preregistrations for certain classes of copyrightable works.

Copyright preregistration is a development coming out of the passage by Congress of the Artists’ Rights and Theft Prevention Act of 2005. Legislative history behind the Act showed that motion pictures, sound recordings, musical compositions, literary works being prepared for publication in book form, computer programs (including videogames), and advertising and marketing photographs (digital images) were highly likely, from a historical perspective, to be subject to piracy prior to official release.

Preregistration complies with the formalities required in the US Copyright Act for protection. It allows a work owner to sue for infringement prior to registration or commercial release. A regular registration must follow at infringement, or within three months of publication. The fee for preregistration is $100. The Copyright Office maintains a database of preregistrations that may be searched directly from their site.

The fact that a work has been preregistered does not mean that the Copyright Office will necessarily register the work when an application for registration is submitted. The Office will also not compare the information provided in the preregistration submission with that provided in the follow-up registration — names of authors may be added and names of claimants may change.