Copyright exists automatically the moment your song is written down or recorded. What registration buys is the power to actually do something when it's taken — and a deadline most musicians have never heard of decides how much.
Register before someone infringes — or within 3 months of release — and the law hands you statutory damages and attorney's fees.
Without timely registration you can only sue for the money you can prove you lost — usually small, always expensive to prove, and you can't file the lawsuit at all until you register. With it, statutory damages run from $750 to $30,000 per work (up to $150,000 if willful), plus your legal fees. That difference is what makes a lawyer answer your email.
The 3-month window after first publication is the one deadline that matters: file inside it and you're covered even against infringement that started the day of release. Miss it, and anything that begins before you eventually register is actual-damages-only, forever. The wizard computes this date for every released song in your catalog.
One GRUW group application registers up to 10 unpublished songs by the same writer(s) — versus $45 each filed one at a time. Register before release and the 3-month clock never becomes your problem.
One $65 album filing for the songs (PA) plus one for the recordings (SR) — the Copyright Office requires them separately. Compare: registering 10 tracks individually would run $900+.
Wrote it, recorded it, own both? One Single-Application SR filing can claim the recording AND the underlying song together. The wizard pre-fills the authorship statement that makes that work.
A fee increase has been proposed in Washington (averaging ~43%) and could take effect; the wizard shows the date these numbers were last verified and where to double-check them.
Released vs unreleased, solo vs co-written, masters owned or not — the four questions that legally determine which application each song belongs in.
Group applications wherever the rules allow, single applications where they don’t, with the reasoning spelled out per group.
Copy-paste-ready values for each screen of the government form — application type, titles, publication, authorship claim, claimant, deposit rules.
Per-release statutory-damages countdowns, plus a tracking table for case and registration numbers as filings come back.