Post

I am lightly horrified by how many people have now looked up their books and found out their publishers (who often were required contractually!!!!) just... didn't register the copyrights on books. Not all of them! Just sporadically! This is not just one publisher, I've seen all the big ones now.

The implications (for those who do not understand why we're all suddenly freaking out) is that in the US, if you do not pay the fee to register your copyright, you do not have the same legal protections. @courtneymilan.com did a good thread about this but tl;dr: it impacts the AI lawsuit a lot.

So I guess... if you were published by one of the big guys in the US, don't assume they registered the copyright for all of your books. Go look your books up and find out: publicrecords.copyright.gov

(because this is getting more attention I'm going to add: maybe there is some esoteric way that all of our books are registered but you just can't find them in the database--I don't know HOW, I was a dba & searched every possible way I could imagine them being misregistered--but it is POSSIBLE?)

(however if you can not find your book in the database it is probably a good idea to reach out to your publisher and ask them if/how they registered it!!! you will need to know if you want to engage in that settlement!)

Does that mean it’s too late for you to get money from the case?