united-states copyright
Can text be copyrighted before it is published in printed form?
<p>For example, can a textual work in progress be registered with the US Copyright Office before or once it is published online?  Related: Can additions, edits, and deletions be made in a copyrighted work published online before it is printed?</p>

<p>Copyright under U.S. law, and the law of other countries that are parties to the Berne Convention, arises by operation of law when a work is recorded in a fixed form, which could include an electronic record or a sound recording, for example.</p>
<p>Copyright is no longer influenced by whether or not the work is published. Additions, edits and deletions are each separately protected by copyright, and every version by the same author is protected by copyright.</p>
<p>Registration with the U.S. Copyright Registrar, which is administratively housed in the Library of Congress in the legislative branch of the federal government in the United States, provides certain administrative and procedural benefits, but can be done at any time and is not necessary for a copyright to arise.</p>

<p>You register your work <a href="https://www.copyright.gov/registration/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">here</a>. If the work is not yet published, you can still register it. You can register multiple versions, be they published or unpublished. <a href="https://www.copyright.gov/about/fees.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Here</a> is their table of fees: as you can see, it would be economically ill-advised to separately register trivial modifications. Copyright protection itself if automatic, so you don't necessarily have to register until it's time to go to court.</p>
