Benefits of Group Registration Before Publication

Group Registration of Unpublished Works (GRUW)

The Group Registration of Unpublished Works, or GRUW for short, is a filing option with the United States Copyright Office to file copyright registration for multiple musical compositions or sound recordings at once. It is a great way to save money while registering your works. You can file up to 10 works (including both Musical Compositions and Sound Recordings) with a single Federal Filing Fee, instead of the standard fee per work. However, there are some requirements that must be met before filing the GRUW.

• All the works must be unpublished/unreleased. (The Copyright Office has a technical definition of this that differs from traditional music publishing.)
  • "Publication occurs when copies of a work are distributed to the public or offered to a group for further distribution, public performance, or public display. Once a work has been published, it is no longer eligible for the GRUW application."
• You may submit no more than 10 works.
• All works must be created by the same unique author combination.
• All of the authors must be named as copyright claimants for all of the works.
• You must identify the authorship that each author or joint author contributed to the works, and the authorship statement for each author and each work must match exactly.
• You must provide a separate title for each individual work
• Each work must be registered in the same administrative class (Work of the Performing Arts or
  Sound Recording).
• You must submit an electronic copy of each work. Each work must be contained in a separate electronic file, the files must be assembled in an orderly form, and they must be uploaded to the electronic registration system in an acceptable file format.

If you do not satisfy any of these conditions, the United States Copyright Office may refuse the group application and you
will need to reapply with the appropriate application(s), filing fee(s), and deposit(s).

As you can see, you can save hundreds of dollars in Federal Filing Fees alone by registering your copyright prior to any publication or release. Once songs are released for publication, this type of group registration is no longer an option. If you have unreleased works that you've been thinking about copyrighting, now is the time to do it.

We can help you today through our Copyrighting service!

Additional Resources:
copyright.gov - Circular 24, "Group Registration of Unpublished Works"