Unlocking Copyright Mastery: Safeguarding Short Form, Viral Content for a Best-Selling Author
Scenario:
In 2020, the U.S. Copyright Office approved a new regulation that permitted the registration of groups of short form content. Our client, a New York Times best selling author, creates original short form content on a frequent basis. Nearly all of the content goes viral online, increasing the likelihood of theft.
Because we stay on top of changing copyright laws and regulations, we were in position to advise our client to register their short form work with the U.S. Copyright Office. We devised a copyright strategy based both on (1) the volume of short form content our client had already created and (2) the new regulations. We developed a plan for registering our client’s content on a consistent schedule going forward. Finally, we registered 600+ pieces of existing content with the U.S. Copyright Office.
Impact:
Our client now has a tough-to-dispute public record that they authored the content, they can fully defend their ownership if copyright infringement occurs and they can commercialize the content for profit through licensing if they desire.
Our client also avoided nearly $400,000 in combined attorney fees and filing fees, which is what it would have cost to handle registrations for 600+ pieces of original content had we not learned the new copyright regulations.