Is Registration Required?
It is a common misconception to confuse copyright registration with the granting of copyright.
Copyright is itself an automatic international right, governed by international conventions - principally the Berne Convention (which dates from 1886). This means that copyright exists whether a work is registered or not. When the US signed up to the Convention in 1989, the internal registration system was retained, but foreign works must now be treated as though already registered in the US in accordance with the Berne Convention.
Professor Lawrence Lessig, Representative Lofgren and others have suggested that countries impose registration requirements after the internal term of protection required by the Berne Convention.
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