Copyright and Mandatory Deposit
with The Library of
Congress
You own the copyright in your
work the moment you create it, without any registration or other
formalities. Then when you print your book, you identify the
copyright using the © symbol with the year of copyright and the
copyright owner, like this:
© 2007 Margo Lane.
Finally, after your books have been printed, you register your copyright
with the Library of Congress to establish a public record of your
copyright ownership. For more details, see the web site for
the Library of Congress
here.
There is a legal
requirement that you deposit 2 copies of your published work with
the Library of Congress within 3 months of publication.
You can combine this Mandatory Deposit submission with registration
of your copyright.
For all the information you need about copyrights, visit the Library
of Congress web site
here
Library of Congress
Cataloging in Publication and
Pre-assigned Control Numbers
The Library of Congress
has two programs for assigning you numbers before your books are
printed. The Cataloging in Publication (CIP) actually catalogs
the book, and it is intended for larger publishers. The
Pre-assigned Control Numbers (PCN) program is open for all US
publishers. There's all the detail you could want on the Library
of Congress web site at the following two URLs:
For information on CIP
and the process of getting Library of Congress numbers, click
here
For information on
Pre-assigned Control Numbers, click
here.
There is no requirement that you
have a CIP, and this is available only to large publishers.
There is no requirement that you have a PCN, and frankly I don't see
any advantage to getting one, except it may add class to your
copyright page.
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