17 U.S.C. § 205 — Recordation of transfers and other documents

(a) Conditions for Recordation A copyright transfer, or any other document related to a copyright, can be recorded with the Copyright Office. To record it, the document must have the actual signature of the person who signed it — or it must come with a sworn or official statement certifying it's a true copy of the signed original. That sworn or official statement can be submitted electronically, following the Register of Copyrights' rules. (b) Certificate of Recordation Once the Copyright Office gets a properly submitted document and the fee required under section 708, the Register of Copyrights must record it and send it back with a certificate proving it was recorded. (c) Recordation as Constructive Notice Recording a document gives everyone "constructive notice" — legal notice, whether or not they actually saw it — of what the document says. But this only works if two things are true: the document (or something attached to it) clearly identifies the work it's about, well enough that a reasonable search by the work's title or registration number would find it once the Register indexes it; and the work must already be registered. (d) Priority Between Conflicting Transfers If two transfers of the same copyright conflict, here's who wins. The transfer signed first normally wins — but only if it's recorded, in the way that gives constructive notice under subsection (c), within one month of being signed (if signed in the U.S.) or within two months (if signed outside the U.S.), or any time before the later transfer gets recorded that way. Otherwise, the later transfer wins if it's recorded first that way, and if the person who got it acted in good faith, paid real value (or made a binding promise to pay royalties), and didn't know about the earlier transfer. (e) Priority Between Conflicting Transfer of Ownership and Nonexclusive License A nonexclusive license — recorded or not — beats a conflicting transfer of copyright ownership if the license is written down and signed by the rights owner (or their authorized agent), and if either: the license was granted before the transfer happened, or the license was granted in good faith before the transfer was recorded and without knowing about the transfer.