Check out this class action lawsuit:
http://www.copyrightclassaction.com/
It is a very expensive lesson in non-fiction publishing for me. I just discovered that Writer's Digest never registered my copyrights to the articles I wrote for them. The settlement would be worth around $1500 per violation if they had. Since they didn't, if I understand the FAQ correctly, it's $60 per violation. Now--if they registered the magazine as an entire entity, as many magazines do, perhaps that will still count. Don't know yet.
I would use money right now. From now on, I register my own copyrights. In fact, I'm seriously thinking about registering the last unregistered short stories, for an anthology series.
http://www.copyrightclassaction.com/
It is a very expensive lesson in non-fiction publishing for me. I just discovered that Writer's Digest never registered my copyrights to the articles I wrote for them. The settlement would be worth around $1500 per violation if they had. Since they didn't, if I understand the FAQ correctly, it's $60 per violation. Now--if they registered the magazine as an entire entity, as many magazines do, perhaps that will still count. Don't know yet.
I would use money right now. From now on, I register my own copyrights. In fact, I'm seriously thinking about registering the last unregistered short stories, for an anthology series.