will the library of congress copyright a book (collection of poerty)?

Question

I have compiled a collection of my poetry and would like to know if the library of congress will copyright the book as a whole or poem by poem?

Answer 1

The Library of Congress will copyright the book as a whole. Every poem will fall under the same copyright. It's cheaper that way.

Answer 2

The registration is done at the US Copyright Office. And how you file it is really up to you -- poem by poem OR as an entire book.

See the last 2 links in the source box. The application is fairly simple & the cost is $45 per application.

Despite what others state, a "poor man's" copyright is NOT the same as registering it. Here's what the US Copyright Office has to say:

"The practice of sending a copy of your own work to yourself is sometimes called a 'poor man’s copyright.' There is no provision in the copyright law regarding any such type of protection, and it is not a substitute for registration."

Hope that helps! I wish you much success & happiness in all your ventures!

Answer 3

Copyright is not granted by the Library of Congress nor by the US Copyright Office, a division of the Library of Congress. By law, copyright is granted automatically to all creators from the moment their original work is put into a fixed form.

So an original poem you made up in your head is not copyrighted (because it's not in a fixed form), nor is it copyrighted if you tell it to someone else (voice is not a fixed form). But you *automatically* own the copyright to that original poem if you write it down on a piece of paper or save it on a hard drive or make a recording of yourself reciting it. Those are all "fixed forms."

With regards to your question, this means that you *already* own the copyright to every individual poem as well as to your poems in a collected book form. No one can publish those poems individually or in book form, nor include them in some other book or anthology, without your permission. The Library of Congress or US Copyright Office is not required to be involved at all.

However, you can, at your discretion, register your work with the US Copyright Office. Note that this is *not* required to claim your copyright. This is merely a formality that can provide you with government recognition of your copyright ownership. That could be beneficial, for example, if you ever have to take someone to court for infringing on your copyright.

If you wish to register your work with the US Copyright Office, you're probably better off submitting the book as you'll only have to pay the processing fees once, whereas if you wanted to register each poem separately you would have to pay multiple times.

Since the purpose of registering your copyright is not to obtain copyright (because you *already* own the copyright to your work), but rather to obtain *government recognition* of your copyright ownership, there's no good reason to register each poem individually. If the government recognizes your copyright ownership over the collection of poems, that extends to recognizing your copyright ownership over each of the individual poems in that collection.