How Much Does a Copyright Cost?

Technically, Copyrights Themselves Are Free

Copyrights protect your creative works, such as books and other texts, recorded music, pictures and photographs, and movies and other audiovisual recordings. The owner of the copyright to a creative work has the right to prevent others from making or distributing copies of the work without permission.

Copyrights now arise automatically when such a work is created, without any action on the part of the author and without any cost. The copyright is initially owned by the person or people who made the creative work, unless the work was made as a “work for hire” for another entity, for example by an employee for his or her employer as a part of the employee’s job, in which case the employer owns the copyright.

Registering Your Copyright With the Government Costs Money

Unfortunately, copyrights are not worth much if they are not registered with the government. For example, you cannot bring a copyright infringement lawsuit based on an unregistered copyright. Therefore, there is no practical way to enforce your copyrights unless they are registered. I explain many of the benefits of copyright registration here.

It costs $35 to register a copyright online with the Copyright Office, or $50 to register a copyright using a paper Form CO with printed barcode, or $65 for registering a copyright using a simple paper form. Almost all copyright registrations can be applied for either online or using Form CO, depending on your preference. Beyond the cost savings, it is a good idea to file electronically because the wait time for a copyright registration is about one year longer for paper filings than for electronic filings.

Because there is a wait of up to 9 months for an electronic application to be processed and up to 22 months for a paper filing, it is best to apply for registration early. If you find it necessary to obtain a rush copyright registration in order to file suit against a copyright infringer, the cost of expedited processing of your application at the Copyright Office is $760.

A full list of copyright costs is available at the Copyright Office website here.

For Many Copyrights, the Cost of a Copyright Attorney’s Help is Justified

Of course, if you use a copyright attorney to help you with the application for copyright registration, you must add the attorney’s fees to the government costs given above. You can expect an attorney’s help with preparing and filing a copyright application to cost a minimum of a couple hundred dollars.

If you have some experience with filing copyright applications, and/or your copyright claim is very simple, you may be able to get away with not using an attorney. But, I would recommend using a copyright attorney at least for the first time you register a certain type of work, especially if there are any issues such as a work for hire, transfer of ownership, multiple authors, multiple works, a portion of the work you are not claiming copyrights to, etc.

A copyright attorney will save you a lot of time trying to figure out the Copyright Office system and will avoid costly mistakes that could result in delay of your copyright registration or necessitate a whole new application.

Thus, the total cost of a copyright registration including a copyright attorney’s help is about $200-300, or potentially much more if you choose to use an expensive attorney.