The Characteristics of Authors Reflected in Copyright Registrations
The U.S. Copyright Office’s Office of the Chief Economist released The Characteristics of Authors Reflected in Copyright Registrations, examining socioeconomic patterns of authors who register copyrights. It is based on copyright registrations submitted by individuals (as compared to corporate or other organizational claimants) between 2011 and 2024,1 which have been aggregated by zip code, year, and type of creative work. Statistical analyses of these data produce the following key findings:
- More copyright registrations originate from areas where people have higher levels of educational attainment, earn higher incomes, are older, and work in the information and entertainment industries.
- More copyright registrations per person originate from urban areas than rural or suburban ones, suggesting certain productive efficiency gains from agglomeration (the tendency for economic activity to cluster geographically).
- The relationship between copyright registrations and socioeconomic characteristics varies substantially for different types of creative works.
1 The U.S. Copyright Office’s full public dataset of approximately 22 million copyright registration records and 15 million other records from January 1, 1978, to June 27, 2025, is available on copyright.gov.