http://www.asmp.org/pdfs/guides/primer.pdf

Updated and just released, might be helpful reading for those of you who register in the US.

Some days I don't know how my paying $30 helps stop infringing. In a major use and someone you can track down and prosecute, it makes sense.

In the world of Microstock theft, "free wallpaper", free downloads, Flickr, Pintrest and some more, I don't know if it does anything at all?

Actually I can go figure, that you and many other people are correct click_click. This must be frustrating to have paperwork returned for technicalities and also the lawyers (who else?) Say if you file wrong, you may not be protected. What a bunch of gibberish.

Not only that, we pay to register for "protection" and then have no legal teeth to enforce that protection, from those same laywers.

I think if you read the new Primer, there have been some changes made to the Group Registration. There's still conversation and debate over the Federal Small Claims Court for this kind of thing.

Other concerns beside yours:

Yes I know the first naysayer will say, "If you win you still can't collect."

But how about now, where you can't even go to court, no attorney will take a $50 lawsuit. (they won't even write a threatening letter for $50?) Or few hundred for that matter. If you win, you lose money and guess what... you still can't collect!

So instead of all the negatives and how small claims court won't work, maybe get some laws that protect us and have some teeth, instead of paying for a registration that is a nice piece of documentation, that is almost totally useless. I don't want to pay $180 a year so I can file worthless DMCA take downs.

My answer is still the equivalent of a parking ticket. Saw someone finds an illegal or infringing use on a blog. We file, they (whoever THEY is) goes and confirms our claim, sends the registered owner a fine of $100. $50 goes to us, $50 goes to the agency. They have funds to operate, we have something that stops people from "not knowing it was illegal" and the ignorance is immunity defense.

In short time the word will get out and something like Instant Education will miraculously occur.

...The ECO now allows you to upload material in batches.  The first batch I uploaded (late last year) contained unpublished images from 2010, 2011 and 2012; no problem getting ECO to accept them and issue a certificate. ...
Regards

I know about the batches and I know that I can register unpublished images that I created over the course of the last x years as well.

The problem is that I would have to hold back my new uploads for let's say 3 months, register them as unpublished and then upload them because I cannot register already published images as I'm producing them on a daily basis.