Multiple Works 3
Registration of a Collective Work with Its Individual Works
A collective work and its individual works can be registered on one application with one filing fee
only if
• Each work within the collective work contains a sufficient amount of original authorship;
• The copyright in the collective work and the copyright in the individual works is owned by the
same party; and
• The individual works have not been previously published or previously registered.
For example, an album that contains multiple sound recordings that embody multiple musical
compositions is considered a collective work for purposes of registration. Typically, the party that
owns the copyright in the sound recordings also owns the copyright in the album, because that
party is usually responsible for creating the album as a whole. If that is the case, the album and the
multiple sound recordings can be registered together on one application as a collective work (assum-
ing the recordings have not been published or registered before).
If the copyright owner of the album owns both the sound recordings and the musical composi-
tions that are embodied in each recording, then the album, the musical compositions, and the sound
recordings can be registered together on one application as a collective work (assuming the compo-
sitions and the recordings have not been published or registered before).
By contrast, if the copyright owner of the album does not own the copyright in the musical com-
positions (or vice versa), or if the compositions have been previously published, then each composi-
tion must be registered separately as an individual contribution to the collective work.
If you submit multiple works with one application, and the Copyright Office determines that the
works can be registered together as a collective work, the Office may add an annotation to the cer-
tificate, such as “basis for registration: collective work.” As a general rule, the Office will not annotate
the certificate if you expressly assert a claim in the “collective work” or the “compilation.”
Scope of a Registration for a Collective Work
A collective work is considered a single work for purposes of calculating statutory damages;
therefore, registering a collective work together with the individual works contained in it may have
important consequences in an infringement action. Section 504(c)(1) of the Copyright Act states that
a copyright owner may be entitled to recover “an award of statutory damages for all infringements
involved in the [infringement] action, with respect to any one work,” and “[f]or the purposes of this
subsection, all the parts of a compilation . . . constitute one work.” The statute also states that a col-
lective work is, by definition, a compilation. Thus, when you register a number of individual works
as part of a collective work, you may be entitled to seek one award of statutory damages for the col-
lective work as a whole rather than a separate award for each individual work, even if the defendant
infringed all of those works.
Group Registration
The Copyright Office has established an administrative procedure that allows you to register a group
of related works in certain limited categories with one application and one filing fee. This procedure
is known as a “group registration.”
A group registration covers all the works that are included within the group, provided that you
comply with specific requirements.