Work registration
Telling the collecting bodies a song exists, who wrote it, and in what shares.
Registering a work means telling the bodies that collect money for songs that this song exists, who wrote it, in what proportions, and who publishes it. It is administrative, unexciting, and the single largest determinant of whether a catalogue gets paid.
It is worth separating two things that both get called registration. Registering a copyright with the US Copyright Office is a legal step: copyright already exists on fixation, but registration is a precondition for bringing an infringement suit and for claiming statutory damages and attorney's fees. Registering a work with the collecting bodies is a commercial step: it is what allows performance and mechanical income to be matched to owners and distributed. Doing one does not do the other.
A registration on the collection side carries the title and alternate titles, every writer with their legal name, society and IPI, each writer's percentage, the publisher and its IPI where there is one, and increasingly the recordings the work appears on, by ISRC. Publishers and administrators submit these in bulk using the CWR standard rather than by hand.
Two failures dominate. Non-registration means income has nowhere to go: it does not accrue to the writer in the background, it sits unmatched, and in some systems is eventually distributed on market share to parties who did register. Conflicting registration — the same work filed twice with different titles, spellings or shares, often because co-writers' publishers each registered separately — puts the work in dispute and holds distribution until it is resolved.
Both are prevented by the same discipline: one agreed split sheet, one consistent set of names and IPIs, one registration, and the recordings linked to the work as they are released.
Common questions
Is registering with the Copyright Office the same as registering with my society?
No. Copyright Office registration is the legal step that lets you sue and claim statutory damages. Society registration is what gets you paid. Both are worth doing.
What happens to income for an unregistered song?
It is held as unmatched rather than accruing to you. In some systems it is eventually distributed on the basis of market share to parties who did register.
Why is my registration in dispute?
Usually because the work was registered more than once with inconsistent shares, titles or writer details — commonly when each co-writer's publisher files separately.
More in the glossary
