Copyright

Help: Newsletters

Eligibility Requirements

A group of newsletter issues may be registered with the U.S. Copyright Office with one application and one filing fee, if the following conditions have been met:

  • Each issue must be a “newsletter” (defined below).
  • The group must include at least two issues.
  • Each issue must be an all-new issue or an all-new collective work (defined below) that has not been published before.
  • Each issue must be fixed and distributed as a discrete, self-contained work (described below).
  • The author and claimant for each issue must be the same person or organization.
  • All the issues must be published under the same continuing title.
  • All the issues must be published within the same calendar month and bear issue dates within that month (regardless of whether the newsletter was published daily, weekly, bi-weekly, or on any other schedule).
  • The applicant must identify the earliest and most recent date that the issues were published.

You must submit one complete copy of each issue. The issues must be submitted in a digital form, each issue must be contained in a separate PDF file, and the files must be uploaded to the electronic registration system.


To access the application, click the phrase “Register Certain Groups of Published Works,” which appears on the home page of the electronic registration system. Then select “Daily Newsletters” from the options listed in the drop down menu marked “Type of Group.”


NOTE: Although the application is labeled “daily newsletters,” this form may be used to register any newsletter, even if it isn’t published on a daily basis.


Newsletters that do not satisfy these requirements cannot be registered using this group registration option.


All the Works Must Be Newsletter Issues

You may use this option to register a group of newsletter issues. This option cannot be used to register any other type of work.


For purposes of registration, a “newsletter” is a serial that is published and distributed by mail, electronic media, or other medium. The issues must contain news or information chiefly of interest to a special group, such as trade and professional associations, colleges, schools, or churches. Newsletters are typically distributed through subscriptions, but are not distributed through newsstands or other retail outlets.


Each Work Must Be an All-New Issue or an All-New Collective Work

A newsletter may be considered a collective work if each issue contains a number of contributions constituting separate and independent works in themselves that are assembled into a collective whole.


Collective works typically contains two different types of authorship:

  • The compilation authorship involved in creating the issue as a whole, including the selection, coordination, and/or arrangement of the separate contributions, as well as editing or other revisions.

  • The authorship in the separate and independent contributions that have been included within the issue, such as articles, photographs, and illustrations.

If the newsletter is a collective work, the registration will cover each issue in the group and each issue will be registered as a separate collective work. The registration may also cover the articles, photographs, illustrations, or other contributions that appear in each issue, if the claimant fully owns the copyright in both the issue and the contributions on the date the claim is filed, and if the contributions have not been previously published or registered and are not in the public domain.


A newsletter issue may qualify as an “all new” collective work if it contains a sufficient amount of compilation authorship. In other words, there must be new expression in the selection, coordination, and/or arrangement of the articles, photographs, or other content appearing in each issue. The fact that the content itself is entirely new is irrelevant to this determination. For example, an issue could be considered “all new” if it contains a brand new selection, coordination, and arrangement of content, even if that content has been previously published in the newsletter, such as advertisements appearing in previous issues.


To register a newsletter as a collective work you may state “collective work” in the “Other” field on the Author/Claimant screen. Alternatively, you may check the box marked “Contribution(s) by the same author and claimant” on that same screen.

 

The Newsletter Must Be Fixed and Distributed as a Discrete, Self-contained Work

A newsletter may satisfy this requirement if the issue as a whole is fixed in a tangible medium of expression, and if the content of each issue does not change once it has been distributed. For instance, a publisher that mails each issue to its subscribers would satisfy this requirement, because the newsletter is clearly fixed and distributed in a physical format.


A publisher that emails an electronically printed (“ePrint”) newsletter to its subscribers may satisfy this requirement if each issue contains a fixed selection of content, such as a PDF version of a physical publication. Similarly, a publisher that allows its subscribers to download an ePrint newsletter from its website may satisfy this requirement if the content of each issue does not change once it has been downloaded.


By contrast, websites are not eligible for this group registration option, because they typically add, archive, and/or replace content on a continuing basis, and as such, are not fixed and distributed as discrete, self-contained works.


An email that notifies recipients that a new issue has been posted to a website may be eligible for registration only if the issue is contained within the body of the email or as an attachment. A registration for the emailed issues does not extend to any website content that is not contained within or attached to the email. Nor does it extend to any website content that does not appear within the emailed issue, or contributions published on a website before the emailed issue was distributed to subscribers.

 

All the Issues Must Be Published in the Same Month

All the issues in the group must be published, they must be published within the same month, and they must bear issue dates within that month. This group registration option cannot be used to register issues that were published in different months or different years.

 

Title of Newsletter

On the title screen, give the title of the newsletter exactly as it appears on each issue. As mentioned above, the title of each issue must be the same.


Do not include titles for the individual articles or other contributions appearing in the newsletter.

 

City/State

Identify the city and state where the newsletter was published. If the issues were not published in a particular city or state, you may leave this space blank.

 

Month/Year

Identify the month and year that the issues were published. This information should be provided in “MM/YYYY” format. For example, if the issues were published in August 2018, you should enter “08/2018.”

 

ISSN

As discussed below, you must upload a digital copy of each issue. If an International Standard Serial Number (“ISSN”) has been assigned to the newsletter, that number should be included in the file name for each issue.


You also may provide this number on the title screen in the field marked “ISSN.” If you provide an ISSN in the application itself – in addition to including it in the file names – it will appear on the certificate of registration and in the online public record for the claim.


If you do not have an ISSN, you may request a number from the U.S. ISSN Center.