First, this seems like a great section and I learned a lot reading the thread on pricing and contracts.

I've got some newbie concerns regarding copyright. I'm about to start marketing content through a stock supplier (Artbeats-which is pretty exciting)! They seem to want the QuickTime movies from the raw files in 1920x1080 or higher resolution. So I'm guessing they want me to render the full dimensions of the original stills and they will edit them into the formats they want (e.g. 1080p)...

So I'm a little confused on what I should submit for copyright. I'm wondering if I can render the footage at a lower compression and then compress the files further as a *.ZIP. Any suggestions will be appreciated.

Here is some info off the US copyrights webpage.

Here is a section on "Uploading Electronic Files in eCO":
http://www.copyright.gov/eco/faq.html

Here is some info. on uploading constraints:
http://www.copyright.gov/eco/tips.pdf
I noticed they've increased the time from 30 to 60 min. per session for uploading... http://www.copyright.gov/eco/update/index.html

Here is something regarding "Best edition":
http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ07b.pdf
I didn't find this very helpful for figuring out what to submit regarding electronic movies files. Maybe I skimmed over it.

Here is the fees link for US copyrights:
http://www.copyright.gov/docs/fees.html

I was reading through the different forms on the copyright.gov website and wasn't exactly sure how time-lapse fits in since we're taking stills and converting them into videos. So I called and spoke to someone in their office.

Although the person was reluctant to recommend anything specific they did suggest options (photographs, video, or performance art [submit both]). I interpreted that video is most relevant. She suggested that I not attempt to submit high resolution video (e.g. 1080p) but instead produce lower resolution videos of the same content and upload those onto their website (or put them on a DVD or thumbdrive). I was hoping she would recommend some formatting dimensions but no luck. She mentioned that they need to be able to resolve the video but not necessarily have high resolution video. So I suppose this means the dimensions can be set pretty small...