Serial issues may be registered as a group if they meet all of the following requirements:

• Two complimentary subscriptions of the serial must first be given to the Library of Congress, so that promptly after publication two copies of each issue are automatically sent to the Library. The mailing address for these subscription copies is:

Library of Congress
Group Periodicals Registration
Washington, DC 20540-4161

• A separate letter must be sent to this same address confirming that the two complimentary subscriptions have been entered. The letter must identify the publisher, the title(s), and the indicia (i.e., volume, number, and issue date on copies) that begin the complimentary subscription.

• The serials must be a “work made for hire,” that is, the employer is the author.

• The author (employer-for-hire) must also be the copyright claimant.

• The claim must be in the collective work.

• Each issue must be an essentially all-new collective work.

• The serial must be published at intervals of one week or longer under the same continuing title.

• All issues in the group must be published within a three-month period within the same calendar year.

• At least two issues must be included on each group application.

• Each issue was created no more than one year prior to the date of publication of that issue.

• One copy of each issue listed on the application must be deposited.

If all of these requirements are not met, each issue must be registered separately.

---

Previous or Alternative Title

This is the previous or secondary title by which the particular work you want to register may be known. This may include the title in another language.

---

Doing Business As

You may give the name under which an author does business as long as the two names represent one and the same entity. The relationship may also be expressed as “trading as,” “sole owner of,” “also known as,” and “acceptable alternative designation.” Where an individual is doing business as an unincorporated organization, the organization is not a separate legal entity. Certain types of organizations such as corporations and partnerships, however, are separate legal entities and should not be listed here.

---

Collective Works

A collective work is a work such as an anthology or encyclopedia or other collection in which a number of contributions are assembled into a collective whole. There are two types of authorship in a collective work:

• Authorship of the collective work as a whole, which may include revisions, editing, compilation, and similar authorship that went into putting the work into final form, and

• Authorship of the individual contributions.

When the two types of authorship are owned separately, they cannot be registered together on a single application. Each application requires a separate fee.

Example: Linda wrote a short story and agreed to have it published in CITY LIFE, an anthology of 12 stories by different authors. Mike compiled and edited the collective work. Linda retains copyright ownership in her story TREE BY THE CORNER because she did not transfer copyright ownership. Linda may file an application for her story, giving TREE BY THE CORNER as the Title of the Work Being Registered, and giving CITY LIFE as the Title of the Larger Work. Mike acquired the right to use the 12 stories but did not acquire copyright ownership of any of them. However, he may file a application for the collective work authorship (the compilation and editing), giving CITY LIFE as the Title of the Work Being Registered.

---

Work Made for Hire

A work made for hire is either

• a work created by an employee as part of his/her regular duties. Courts have considered certain factors in the employment relationship, such as whether taxes are withheld or benefits given, to determine whether the contributor is an “employee” under this sense of the definition. See Circular 9.

or

• a specially commissioned work for certain categories of works and only if there is a written agreement between the employer and employee stating that the work is made for hire. Specially commissioned works must fall into one of the following categories:
  
  
  1. contribution to a collective work
  2. part of a motion picture or other audiovisual work
  3. translation
  4. supplementary work
  5. compilation
  6. instructional text
  7. test or answer material for a test
  8. atlas

If a work is made for hire, the employer is the author. See “statutory definition” below.

Statutory definition A work made for hire is defined as: A work prepared by an employee within the scope of his or her employment, or A work specially ordered or commissioned for use as a contribution to a collective work, as a part of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, as a translation, as a supplementary work, as a compilation, as an instructional text, as a test, as answer material for a test, or as an atlas, if the parties expressly agree in a written instrument signed by them that the work shall be considered a work made for hire. A supplementary work is defined as a work prepared for publication as a secondary adjunct to a work by another author for the purpose of introducing, concluding, illustrating, explaining, revising, commenting upon, or assisting in the use of the other work, such as forewords, afterwords, pictorial illustrations, maps, charts, tables, editorial notes, musical arrangements, answer material for tests, bibliographies, appendices and indexes.