#copyright
Copyright ownership, registration, licensing, and infringement risk for the content, images, and code a small business publishes
The Copyright Claims Board hears copyright claims up to $30,000 entirely online for $100 in fees — but you need a registration application to file.
Register your U.S. copyright before infringement or within 3 months of publication to unlock statutory damages up to $150,000 per work plus attorney's fees.
A cease-and-desist letter is not a court order. Verify the claim, preserve evidence, and reply on your timeline; silence or a hasty apology can cost you.
Nearly 9 in 10 audited licensees underpay royalties, mostly by accident. The 7 errors audits find, the red flags, and the audit clause that shifts the cost.
Playing a DVD or Netflix for customers is a public performance: fines run $750–$150,000 per film, while an MPLC umbrella license costs about $1,000 a year.
Register within three months of first publication or lose statutory damages up to $150,000 per work and attorney's fees for any infringement that began earlier.
Comet Plus pays publishers 80% of subscription revenue as usage-based royalties — book it when the statement settles, and expect IRS Schedule C, not Schedule E.
Any business hosting user uploads, reviews, or listings loses DMCA safe harbor unless it designates an agent with the Copyright Office for $6, renews that designation every three years, and actually enforces a repeat-infringer policy. This guide covers registration, the six elements of a valid takedown notice, the 10-to-14-business-day putback window, and the records that prove compliance.
Paying a contractor does not transfer intellectual property. Under U.S. law the creator owns the copyright and the inventor owns the patent rights unless a signed writing says otherwise, and "work made for hire" language covers only nine narrow statutory categories that exclude custom software. This guide covers the seven clauses a contractor IP assignment needs, why "hereby assigns" beats "agrees to assign," and what investors check in diligence.
After a $1.5 billion settlement and a Supreme Court decision reaffirming human authorship, 2026 rulings split AI training from AI output: training can be fair use, but storing pirated copies is not, and publishing outputs that reproduce protected work still risks infringement. This guide shows what small businesses can own, what they risk, and how to keep AI-assisted work defensible and auditable.
U.S. copyright protects only human authorship, so raw AI output is unprotectable and unenforceable. The Copyright Office's January 2025 report found prompts alone do not make you the author — protection attaches only to the parts a reader can see you wrote. Here is what that means for small-business marketing content, plus the disclosure, licensing, and bookkeeping records that prove it.
