Claims to copyright in either published or unpublished poetry may be registered in the Copyright Office. Form TX should be used to apply for copyright registration for poems. To apply for registration, send the following three elements in the same envelope or package to the Library of Congress, Copyright Office, 101 Independence Avenue, S.E., Washington, D.C. 20559-6000:

1. A completed and signed application form;
2. A $30 nonrefundable filing fee for each application; and
3. A nonreturnable deposit of the work to be registered.

Published collections of poetry and all other copyrightable elements of a unit of publication may be registered on a single form with a single fee if all of the poems are owned by the same copyright claimant.

Unpublished collections of two or more poems may be submitted for registration on a single form with a single fee and deposit of one complete copy or phonorecord only if all of the following conditions are met:

1. The elements are assembled in an orderly form;

2. The combined elements bear a single title identifying the collection as a whole;

3. The copyright claimant in all of the elements and in the collection as a whole is the same; and

4. All of the elements are by the same author, or, if they are by different authors, at least one of the authors has contributed copyrightable authorship to each of the elements.

Registration of an unpublished collection of compositions extends the benefits of registration to each copyrightable selection in the collection, but only the collection title appears in the Copyright Office catalogs and indexes.

See Circular 1, “Copyright Basics,” for further information on copyright, deposit requirements, and registration procedures.

FL-106, February 2000