What does the FRAPA Digital Online Format Registry do?

There is a common misunderstanding that registration is required for copyright protection. Not true, you automatically acquire copyright the moment you write or create your work. The problem is creating credible evidence your work existed the moment you created it.

FRAPA registration creates that evidence. When a dispute comes before a court, both disputing parties will present their evidence. The court has to decide which argument is more credible. How do you prove you came up with the format first? The simplest way: You could place your manuscript in a sealed envelope and send it to yourself by registered mail. But envelopes can be steamed open and contents changed. The next step: You could bring a friend into court to testify as a witness that he read an early version of the manuscript. But friends are not impartial witnesses. The best evidence is a signed declaration by a neutral third-party custodian who swears that they received your manuscript on a certain date and has kept it in seclusion ever since. This is what registration with the FRAPA Paper Format Registry accomplishes.

However, now there is a new and better way: The FRAPA Digital Online Format Registry can prove the same and has further advantages. Registration at FRAPA Digital Online Format Registry provides immediate evidence you created your work at a certain moment in time. By choosing to register your format with the Online Digital Format Registry you receive a large number of benefits and advantages, for instance:

• Register your format within seconds from behind you own computer.
• Register directly in the USA and/or European Union from any location.
• Registration occurs with legally accepted encryption, digital fingerprint & secure internet.
• 100% confidential because a registered format cannot be read or recreated by FRAPA or any other third party.
• The actual format remains on the computer of the registrant.
• Registrations can be used in a court of law as evidence of copyright.
• There is no time limitation on the FRAPA registered formats.
• Receive confirmation of your registration within minutes.

Registering a format with the FRAPA Online Digital Format Registry does not have the same effect as registering your format with the Copyright Office. Indeed, registering with the FRAPA Online Digital Format Registry establishes the validity of the date of existence. Thus the priority of the creation will be presumed to be true unless disproved by evidence to the contrary. Registering with the FRAPA Online Digital Format Registry does not establish a public record of a copyright claim, and may not secure the right to file an infringement suit, or make available a broader range of remedies in an infringement suit, or provide any documentation of transfers of your format, because every registration is confidential.

But FRAPA registration provides you with an important benefit. FRAPA registration creates evidence that can be used in the event of a plagiarism dispute. The outcome of such a lawsuit may depend on which party can persuade the court who created a format first. The first author is presumed to be the original author. The second author is presumed to be the infringer. If the second author can prove the work was independently created, without copying the first author, the second author will be entitled to the copyright to the second format just as the first author will have the copyright to the first format. Thus both authors will own the copyright to their work notwithstanding their substantial similarities. 

As soon as you write and register your format with the FRAPA Digital Online Format Registry, insert a copyright notice in each draft or document. A proper copyright notice contains (1) the word “copyright” or the abbreviation for the word copyright ©, (2) the name of the copyright owner, and (3) the date of first publication and/or registration.

You do not need to be a member of FRAPA to register a format with FRAPA’s Digital Online Format Registry. However, as a member of FRAPA you receive considerable discount (See more under Prices/Fees).

Once you register a file with the FRAPA Digital Online Format Registry, the file will be stored at the Registry-Server. You will not have to pay an annual fee or a refreshing fee for the registered material. You should register your creative work at an early stage of the writing process. If you improve or change your format, you should register once again. At each level of format development, you should register to strengthen the proof you created a unique and individual format. The best way to protect your format is to document and register every step of the development.