Follow these steps to register your pictorial, graphic, sculptural, or architectural work with the U.S. Copyright Office:

Step 1

Make sure your work is a visual arts work. Visual arts are pictorial, graphic, or sculptural works, including 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional works of fine, graphic, and applied art. Examples of visual arts include advertisements, artwork applied to "useful articles" (discussed in the next paragraph), cartoons, dolls, toys, collages, paintings, games, puzzles, models, needlework, photographs, sculpture, stencils, and technical drawings.

A "useful article" is an object having an intrinsic utilitarian function that is not merely to portray the appearance of the article or to convey information. Examples are clothing, furniture, machinery, dinnerware, and lighting fixtures. An article that is normally part of a useful article may itself be a useful article, for example, an ornamental wheel cover on a vehicle. "Useful articles" may have both copyrightable and noncopyrightable features.

Some architectural works also qualify as visual arts works. For example, an original design of a building embodied in any tangible medium of expression -- including a building, architectural plans, or drawings -- is subject to copyright protection as an architectural work. The work includes the overall form as well as the arrangement and composition of spaces and elements in the design but does not include individual standard features or design elements that are functionally required.

Step 2

Put into one envelope or package:

1. A completed application Form VA

2. A $30 payment to "Register of Copyrights."

3. Nonreturnable copy(ies) of the material to be registered. Generally, submit one complete copy of the work if unpublished, two complete copies of the best edition if the work was first published in the United States, or, for certain types of works, identifying material instead of actual copies.Read details on deposit requirements.

Step 3

Send the package to:

Library of Congress
Copyright Office
101 Independence Avenue, S.E.
Washington, D.C. 20559-6000

Your registration becomes effective on the day that the Copyright Office receives your application, payment, and copy(ies) in acceptable form. If your submission is in order, you will receive a certificate of registration in 4 to 5 months.

For more details from the U.S. Copyright Office, please see Circular 40, Copyright Registration for Works of the Visual Arts; Circular 40a, Deposit Requirements in Visual Arts Material; Circular 41, Copyright Claims in Architectural Works; Circular 44, Cartoons and Comic Strips and other informational circulars.