Copyrights are created at the click of the shutter. But to enforce your rights in court for infringement claims, you must first register your copyright before you bring suit in federal court. Period. It doesn’t matter when the infringement is committed or the registration is completed, you still must register before filing suit.

It’s too bad that a freelance writer, Glynn Wilson, in Alabama didn’t learn this lesson earlier. He recently sued Kitty Kelley alleging that she used without permission some of his material for her best-selling book about the Bush family, “The Family: The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty.” The validity of his claim will never be decided in court. He had to withdraw his copyright infringement suit after realizing that he was likely to lose because he had failed to register his copyright with the United States Copyright Office. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/19/arts/19kell.html