Copyright Services

Copyright protection exists from the moment a work is fixed — you own your writing, artwork, music, photographs, or code the instant it's created. But that automatic protection has real limits. You cannot file an infringement suit until the work is registered, and the remedies that make enforcement practical — statutory damages and the possibility of attorney's fees — are generally available only if you registered before the infringement began or within three months of publication. Registration is inexpensive; registering too late can be costly.

We prepare and file applications with the U.S. Copyright Office for the full range of creative and commercial works: manuscripts and articles, visual art and photography, music and sound recordings, software, and more. That includes choosing the correct application type, preparing the deposit copy the Office requires, and — where the rules allow it — using group registration options that protect multiple works, such as a photographer's catalog or a series of blog posts, in a single application at a single fee.

Every registration is handled at a flat fee quoted before work begins. If your situation involves a work already being infringed, registration and enforcement often proceed together — see our enforcement services below.

Copyright ownership doesn't always sit where people assume it does. The creator owns the work by default — which means the business that paid for a logo, a website, custom photography, or software may own far less than it thinks, sometimes nothing more than an implied permission to use it. Whether you are the creator granting rights or the business acquiring them, the difference between what was intended and what was actually transferred lives in the paperwork.

We draft and review the agreements that move copyright cleanly: assignments that transfer ownership outright, licenses that grant defined rights while you keep the copyright — exclusive or non-exclusive, limited by territory, medium, or term — and work-for-hire and independent-contractor agreements that settle ownership before the work is created, when it's easiest. For creators, a well-drafted license can turn one work into a recurring source of income; for businesses, a clean assignment or work-for-hire clause prevents the unwelcome discovery that a contractor still owns your brand assets.

Copyright law adds a trap for the unwary here: transfers of ownership and exclusive licenses must be in writing to be valid. A handshake deal can leave both sides with something different from — and less than — what they bargained for. All agreement drafting and review is quoted at a flat fee.

When your work appears online without permission, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act gives you a remedy that doesn't require a lawsuit: a takedown notice. Sent to the host or platform where the material appears, a properly drafted notice obligates the recipient to remove the infringing content promptly if it wants to keep its legal safe harbor. Most reputable hosts and platforms comply quickly with a notice that meets the statutory requirements — and reject or ignore ones that don't, which is where careful drafting earns its keep.

We handle the process end to end: confirming your rights in the work, identifying the infringing material and where it's hosted, drafting a notice that satisfies every element the statute requires, submitting it through the correct channel, and following up if the platform is slow to act. We also work the other side of the statute: if a takedown notice has been wrongly aimed at your own content, we evaluate the claim and prepare a counter-notice to have the material restored.

For businesses that host user-submitted content — forums, marketplaces, review sections, anything users can post to — we also register your designated DMCA agent with the Copyright Office, a simple filing that is a prerequisite to the safe-harbor protection many site owners assume they already have. Takedown and counter-notice work is handled at a flat fee. If a takedown dispute escalates into litigation, we will refer the matter to appropriate counsel.

Not every infringement can be solved with a platform takedown. When your work is being used without permission by a business, a publisher, or a competitor — or when you have received a demand letter accusing you of infringement — the opening moves shape everything that follows. A measured, well-supported demand letter puts the other side on notice, preserves your remedies, and resolves many disputes without anyone filing anything.

On the enforcement side, we verify your ownership and registration status, assess the strength of the claim, and draft a demand letter calibrated to your goal — removal, credit, payment for past use, or a license going forward. On the receiving side, we evaluate the accusation, identify defenses such as license, fair use, or independent creation, and respond in a way that protects your position without inviting escalation.

Many copyright disputes end in an agreement rather than a victory — a retroactive license, a payment, or an undertaking to stop. We negotiate and document those resolutions. All enforcement work is quoted at a flat fee. We handle these matters through correspondence and negotiation only; we do not represent clients in litigation or in Copyright Claims Board (CCB) proceedings, and will refer those matters to appropriate counsel.

Before you buy a copyrighted work, license it, build a product on it, or invest in a company whose value depends on it, one question comes before all others: who actually owns the rights? The answer is often less obvious than it looks. Works pass through creators, employers, contractors, heirs, and prior deals — and a gap anywhere in that chain can mean the person selling or licensing to you doesn't hold what they're offering.

We trace chain of title through the records that establish it — Copyright Office registrations and recorded transfers, employment and contractor agreements, publishing and licensing contracts — and analyze the questions that determine ownership along the way: whether a work was made for hire, whether a transfer was properly documented, whether joint authorship complicates the picture. The result is a written opinion you can rely on in a transaction or use to fix problems before they become disputes.

Where the chain has gaps, we help close them: preparing confirmatory assignments and recording transfers with the U.S. Copyright Office, which establishes a public record of your ownership and priority over conflicting transfers. Every opinion and recordation is quoted at a flat fee, scoped to the transaction or question at hand.