Do I need to provide a date of birth when I register a work for copyright in the USA?

Question

It appears that the standard US Copyright application for a literary work makes giving one's birth date optional. Is that correct?

Answer 1

There are fields for an author's year of birth and year of death in the form for registering a work for copyright in the US. There is no field for the whole date of birth. Filling in the fields for the years of birth and death is optional, as indicated by the lack of an asterisk in front of the fields in the registration form.

However, indicating the author's year of birth makes identifying the author more certain. The more information you provide, the less likely it is that another person could impersonate the author. For example, some people share their first name with one of their parents or grandparents and are registered under the same address. It is not unheard of that parents and children engage in legal disputes, so indicating the author's year of birth makes distinguishing parent and child easy.

Also, since the duration of copyright is dependent of the date of death, indicating a year of birth might be useful if the date of death is unknown. In that case, the duration of the copyright is based on available information such as the date of birth and estimates of a person's average lifespan (see Author’s date of death is unknown).

For these two reasons, I would always indicate the author's date of birth, if you know it, but you are free not to disclose that information, to your own possible disadvantage.

Answer 2

Just a note that copyright registration in the US is not required in order to secure copyright protection, though it does provide some benefits.

From https://www.uspto.gov/ip-policy/copyright-policy/copyright-basics:

While many people believe that you must register your work with the U.S. Copyright Office before you can claim a copyright, no registration or other action in the Copyright Office is required to secure a copyright. A copyright is secured automatically when the work is created, as long as the work contains a sufficient degree of originality, and a work comes into being when it is fixed in a “copy or a phonorecord for the first time.” This is consistent with the Berne Convention, which states that the “enjoyment and exercise” of copyright “shall not be subject to any formality.”

Some benefits of registering, which may or may not be interesting to you:

• Registration establishes a public record of the copyright claim.
• Registration is necessary before an infringement suit may be filed in court (for works of U.S. origin).
• If made before or within 5 years of publication, registration establishes prima facie evidence in court of the validity of the copyright and of the facts stated in the registration certificate.
• If registration is made within 3 months after first publication of the work or prior to an infringement of the work, statutory damages and attorney’s fees will be available to the copyright owner in court actions. Otherwise, only an award of actual damages and profits is available to the copyright owner.
• Registration allows the owner of the copyright to record the registration with the U.S. Customs Service for protection against the importation of infringing copies.