When it comes to enforcing copyright, timing matters just as much as ownership.
Many publishers assume that registering content “eventually” is sufficient – that as long as a copyright is filed at some point, legal protection is in place. Under U.S. copyright law, that assumption can be costly.
To qualify for statutory damages of up to $150,000 per work and recover attorney’s fees, a copyright must be registered before infringement occurs or within 90 days of first publication. Miss that window, and those remedies are no longer available. The 90-day rule isn’t a technicality; it’s the dividing line between meaningful enforcement and a claim that is often economically impossible to pursue.
The rule exists for a reason. Copyright law was designed to distinguish between rights-holders who act promptly and those who do not. Publishers who register on time can rely on statutory damages – a predefined remedy created specifically for situations where actual financial harm is difficult to calculate. Late registrants, by contrast, are generally limited to proving “actual damages,” a much higher and more expensive bar.
That distinction matters even more in the context of AI training and large-scale content ingestion. Proving actual damages in those cases is exceptionally difficult. How do you quantify the harm caused by a single article, issue, or book being absorbed into a system trained on millions of works? Statutory damages exist precisely because copyright law recognizes that challenge.
What has changed is the speed at which infringement now occurs.
AI systems don’t operate on traditional publishing timelines. Newly released articles, issues, and books can be scraped and ingested almost immediately after publication. That means the 90-day registration window is often the only realistic opportunity to secure enforceable leverage before unauthorized use takes place.
Once that window closes, registration is still possible – but the most powerful remedies are gone. Enforcement becomes slower, more expensive, and far less certain.
As Gregory Catsaros, CEO of The Magazine Coalition, puts it:
“Technology has collapsed the timeframes for both infringement and enforcement. AI models can ingest newly published content almost immediately. The 90-day rule isn’t an abstract legal concept – it’s the entire window publishers have to secure real leverage. If you miss it, you haven’t just fallen behind – you’ve weakened your position.”
The financial implications of missing the window are stark. A publisher releasing one issue per month creates 12 eligible works per year. When those works are registered on time, each carries potential statutory exposure of up to $150,000. Multiply that across titles, years, and backlists, and the difference between timely and late registration becomes enormous.
Miss the deadline, and that same catalog carries only a fraction of its potential enforcement value.
Most publishers don’t miss the 90-day window because they don’t care. They miss it because traditional registration workflows are fragmented. Responsibilities are split across editorial, legal, and operations teams. Deadlines are tracked inconsistently. Metadata lives in multiple systems. And registration urgency doesn’t always match the pace of modern infringement.
Meanwhile, AI companies aren’t waiting.
Meeting the 90-day rule doesn’t require reinventing publishing operations, but it does require structure and visibility. Publishers that consistently protect their rights tend to know exactly what has been published and when, maintain clear records tied to each work, and treat registration timing as a strategic priority rather than an afterthought.
Our approach focuses on giving publishers the structure and visibility needed to identify, track, and prioritize timely registration as part of a defensible rights strategy — helping reduce the organizational blind spots that lead to missed deadlines.
The 90-day rule isn’t a burden. It’s the clearest path to enforceability and leverage.
AI companies are already using publisher content. Whether that use translates into leverage, licensing discussions, or enforcement outcomes depends largely on whether registration was timely. The clock starts at publication, and what happens in the first 90 days matters more than anything that comes after.
Take Action
Understand where you stand – and where opportunities may still exist.
Get a Free Rights Assessment to evaluate your registration posture, or Join The Magazine Coalition to bring structure and visibility to your rights strategy.
