No, you don?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t have to, because copyright arises automatically upon creation of a qualifying work. However, there are benefits to registration (and it?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s pretty much a necessity if litigation is in the wind). Registration provides a presumption that copyright subsists in a work. In a copyright lawsuit, if there is no copyright registration, the plaintiff must first prove that she owns copyright in the work (in other words, that the work meets the requirements of the Copyright Act). If there is a copyright registration, then the burden is on the defendant to prove that there isn\’t any copyright.
Entitlement to financial compensation for copyright infringement may also depend on the date on which copyright was registered. In some countries, a plaintiff must register the copyright before a lawsuit for copyright infringement can be commenced.