You can copyright an ebook for free, and in fact you already have. Under U.S. law, copyright attaches automatically the moment you save an original ebook to a file. No form, no fee, no government office. The catch is that this free, automatic protection has real limits when it comes time to enforce it, and closing that gap costs $45 or $65 through the U.S. Copyright Office.
What the Free Automatic Copyright Gives You
Copyright begins the instant your ebook is “fixed in a tangible medium of expression.” For a digital file, that means the moment you hit save. The rule has worked this way since 1978 and applies whether you self-publish, sell through a retailer, or keep the file on your hard drive.1U.S. Copyright Office. Copyright in General FAQ
As the copyright holder, you get the exclusive rights to reproduce the work, create adaptations or sequels based on it, distribute copies, and display or perform it publicly.2GovInfo. 17 USC 106 – Exclusive Rights in Copyrighted Works Anyone who does any of those things without your permission is infringing, whether they realize it or not.
That free protection lasts a long time. For any ebook written today, copyright runs for your lifetime plus 70 years after your death, then the work enters the public domain.3Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 17 USC 302 – Duration of Copyright: Works Created on or After January 1, 1978
It also travels. Under the Berne Convention, more than 180 member countries recognize copyrights from other member countries automatically, with no separate filings. Because the United States is a member, your ebook is protected in nearly every major market the moment you create it.
What Copyright Does Not Cover
Copyright protects how you express ideas, not the ideas themselves. Your sentences, your structure, your dialogue, your arrangement of chapters — protected. The underlying facts, concepts, and themes are free for anyone else to write about in their own words.4U.S. Copyright Office. What Does Copyright Protect FAQ
Two limits surprise new authors. Your ebook’s title cannot be copyrighted, no matter how original. Neither can short phrases, slogans, or individual character names.4U.S. Copyright Office. What Does Copyright Protect FAQ Titles and brand names live under trademark law, which is a different system.
Where Free Protection Runs Out
Automatic copyright gives you ownership. It does not, on its own, give you a courtroom. You cannot file a copyright infringement lawsuit in federal court over a U.S. work unless you have registered the copyright first (or at least applied to register it).5BitLaw. 17 USC 411 – Registration and Civil Infringement Actions Without a registration, you can send cease-and-desist letters and file takedown notices with retailers and hosts, but you cannot sue.
Timing matters just as much. Register before an infringement begins, or within three months of first publishing your ebook, and you become eligible for statutory damages of $750 to $30,000 per infringed work, up to $150,000 if the infringement was willful, plus attorney’s fees.6Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 17 USC 412 – Registration as Prerequisite to Certain Remedies for Infringement7Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 17 USC 504 – Remedies for Infringement: Damages and Profits Register late, and you are limited to proving your actual losses, which for most ebook authors are modest and hard to document.
A registration made within five years of publication also functions as strong evidence that your copyright is valid.8Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 17 USC 410 – Registration of Claim and Issuance of Certificate In any dispute, the first question is whether you actually own the work. A registration certificate largely answers that up front.
What Paid Registration Costs
Registration goes through the U.S. Copyright Office’s online system. You submit an application, upload an electronic copy of your ebook (the “deposit copy”), and pay the fee.9U.S. Copyright Office. Help: Deposit Copy
If you are the sole author and sole copyright owner, and the ebook is a single work that was not made for hire, the fee is $45. For co-authored ebooks, works made for hire, or applications covering multiple works, the standard application costs $65.10U.S. Copyright Office. Fees Fees are non-refundable whether or not the registration is approved.
The application asks for the ebook’s title, the author’s name, the year of creation, and the date of first publication if it has been published. Straightforward electronic submissions take roughly two months to process. Claims that require correspondence with the office average closer to four months.11U.S. Copyright Office. Registration Processing Times
Add a Copyright Notice, Which Is Free
A copyright notice takes thirty seconds and costs nothing. Put one on the copyright page in this form: © 2026 Your Name. That is the whole notice — the symbol, the year of first publication, and the owner’s name.12U.S. Copyright Office. Copyright Notice
A notice has not been legally required since March 1, 1989, so your copyright is fully valid without one. But including it kills any future claim of “innocent infringement.” If someone copies your ebook and the notice was on the copyright page, they cannot credibly argue they did not know the work was protected, and that can raise the damages a court awards.13U.S. Copyright Office. 17 USC Chapter 4 – Copyright Notice, Deposit, and Registration
The Poor Man’s Copyright Does Not Work
Mailing a copy of your ebook to yourself in a sealed envelope does not create a legal substitute for registration. The Copyright Office is direct about it: there is no provision in copyright law for a “poor man’s copyright.”1U.S. Copyright Office. Copyright in General FAQ A postmarked envelope will not establish ownership in court and will not stand in for a registration certificate. Save the stamp.
If You Used AI to Write Any of It
Copyright law requires human authorship. Works created entirely by artificial intelligence, with no meaningful human creative contribution, cannot be registered. Courts have upheld that standard, and in March 2026 the Supreme Court declined to reconsider it.
Using AI does not automatically disqualify your ebook. Works that combine AI-generated material with substantial human creative input — selecting, arranging, or significantly editing the AI’s output — have been registered successfully.14Federal Register. Copyright Registration Guidance: Works Containing Material Generated by Artificial Intelligence The line is whether you used AI as a tool you directed or whether the AI made the creative decisions.
If your ebook contains more than a minor amount of AI-generated material, you have to disclose it on the application. Use the Standard Application (the $65 option), identify what the human author contributed, and explicitly exclude the AI-generated portions from your claim.14Federal Register. Copyright Registration Guidance: Works Containing Material Generated by Artificial Intelligence Failing to disclose can get your registration invalidated later, which would gut your ability to enforce it. If you already filed without disclosing, you can fix it with a supplementary registration. Keep your prompts, drafts, and editing history; that record is often what turns a refusal into a successful registration.