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You can search for records of registered books, music, art, and periodicals and other works by using the United States Copyright Office. For books registered from January 1, 1978 to the present, the Copyright Office maintains a searchable database.
This form searches the U. S. copyright renewal records. Any book published during the years 1923-1963 which is found in this file is still under copyright, as are all books published after 1964 (although until 1989 they still had to have proper notice and registration). Books published before 1923, or before Jan. 1, 1964 and not renewed, are out of copyright. This file does not contain listings for music, movies, or periodicals. By Rutgers
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At Copyright Clearance Center you can search for and obtain permission to use and share content from the world's leading titles in science, technology, medicine, humanities, news, business, finance and more.
For Books Pre-1978
Google's Scans of the Catalog of Copyright Entries: The Catalog of Copyright Entries is the U.S. Copyright Office’s official publication of copyright registrations and renewals, organized into categories of works. For books registered before 1978, the Catalog of Copyright Entries can be manually searched. Google has scanned 91 volumes of the U.S. Copyright Office Catalog of Copyright Entries (including work registered from 1923 up to 1978) and made those volumes searchable online through Google Books. There are two ways to search Google's scans of the volumes of the Catalog of Copyright Entries. You can search over all 91 volumes that have been scanned, or you can search over individual volumes covering registrations in or around a particular year. Many times, books were registered shortly after publication (within a year or two), so the book's year of publication could be a good starting point for searching individual volumes covering a year. by Google Books
To register a work, a person must submit a completed application form, a nonrefundable filing fee, and a nonreturnable copy or copies of the work to be registered. See Circular 1, Copyright Basics, section “Registration Procedures.” This submission can be done online or by paper application. By U.S. Copyright Office
