There is no need to file an application for copyright protection, or to even place a copyright notice on a work. This automatic creation of copyright protection in the United States began in 1978. Before 1978, statutory copyright was generally secured by the act of publishing a work with a notice of copyright on the work. If a work remained unpublished, statutory copyright could be secured by the act of registration. If a work was published without a copyright notice, the work could enter the public domain and would not have copyright protection.
Compilation copyrights are a special breed of copyrightable work.
An example of a compilation would be a collection of the most influential plays of the Eighteenth Century. Therefore, the grouping of plays is protected by the copyright in the compilation even though each individual play is not protected. A grouping of facts is also protected as a compilation, assuming the grouping contains enough original expression to merit protection. An example of a protectable grouping of facts would be the links to other web sites found in the BitLaw legal links section. Each link consists merely of factual information, namely that a particular web site can be found at a particular URL location.