Copyright Intake

Distributing copies of the work to the public by sale, rental, lending, or distribution, or offering copies to a group for further distribution, public performance, or public display. If in doubt, choose "I'm not sure"; the attorney will make the call.

Generally, an author is a person who actually created the work. A work can have more than one author.

A claimant is a person or business that owns the copyright in the work, either as an author or by having received all of an author's rights (for example, through a written assignment), and is named as an owner on the application to register it. A work can have more than one claimant, and a person named on a pending application is a claimant before any registration issues.

By default, the person who creates a work is its author. The main exceptions are (1) a work an employee creates in the ordinary course of employment, and (2) a work that was specially commissioned under a signed written agreement and falls within a limited set of categories. Whether a work is "made for hire" is a legal question the attorney will answer; you do not need to decide it. If there is a written agreement about the work, note that in the form and have it ready to share.