Copyright Registration Checklist

These questions will help you to gather the information needed to complete a registration application form and to spot circumstances that require special treatment, such as the need for an assignment if you are not the only author, but would like to be the only copyright owner.

1. Are there any authors other than persons who were UT employees at the time of the creation of the work to be registered (the "Work")? If so, are there signed agreements relating to ownership of copyright (assignments)?

2. In what year was creation completed? If the Work is still undergoing change, use the present year.

3. What were the date and nation of first publication of the Work? If the Work is software, this question is addressed to the publication of the source code listing itself, rather than publication of literature that discusses the software. Note that publication of the source code is generally inconsistent with protection of trade secrets (see question 6. below).

4. Identify any preexisting works that the Work is based upon or incorporates (in the case of software, works such as public domain subroutines or other software that does similar tasks). This question is not addressed to earlier versions of the same Work, unless such earlier versions have been registered with the Copyright Office.

5. If any works are identified under question 4. above, describe what has been added to this Work and in which copyright is claimed.

6. If the Work is software, are there any trade secrets to be protected? The entire source code will have to be deposited with the Copyright Office and will be available to the public. If there are parts of the source code that, if revealed, would jeopardize its commercial value, if any, the author can take advantage of special deposit rules for source code containing trade secrets. The presence of such secrets affects the kind of copyright notice that should be incorporated into the code as well as the kind of deposit required and the form of submission letter sent to the Copyright Office.

7. If the Work is software, is the source code listing shorter than 50 pages?

8. If the Work is software, on what kind of hardware is it designed to run?

9. If the Work is software, is there user documentation? If yes, are there trade secrets in the documentation?

The brochure entitled Circular 61, Copyright Registration for Computer Programs, will provide helpful guidance regarding the special issues associated with registering copyright in software.

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