Copyright FAQs - Is Registration required for Copyright Protection?

The Berne Convention states that formal requirements are not required for copyright protection to apply.

The Universal Copyright Convention provides that countries who are signatories may establish public registers recording the ownership of copyright. At the time the Convention was adopted by the original contracting countries, some countries declined to adopt the Convention because the protection was already catered for in the Berne Convention. As a result, registration process is not required in most countries - copyright protection applies automatically, the most notable exception is the United States, and a well entrenched system of registration applies in that jurisdiction. A public register has the advantage of putting third parties on notice as to the ownership of copyright in a work, however it is not determinative of IP rights.

Proving that a copyright work was brought into existence at a particular time may be an evidential requirement in legal proceedings. To create some evidence of the date a copyright work was created, some copyright owners elect to send themselves packages through the post, so that the postmark on the package is evidence that the copyright work enclosed was created on or before that date. Such envelopes are opened in controlled circumstances in the event that a dispute arises, and that evidence is adduced to a court as proof of the fact that the creation of the work preceded that of the alleged infringer.