diff --git a/update_copyrights b/update_copyrights
index 7fc4b30097c..ea48e1e29f2 100755
--- a/update_copyrights
+++ b/update_copyrights
@@ -57,14 +57,11 @@ def do_hash(file):
 
 args = argparse.ArgumentParser()
 args.add_argument("--repo", default=".", help="The directory of the Wesnoth repository to run this script against.")
-args.add_argument("--output", default="output.csv", help="The file to write the results of this script to.")
+args.add_argument("--output", default="copyrights.csv", help="The file to write the results of this script to.")
 args.add_argument("--input", default="copyrights.csv", help="The file to read the existing copyright data from.")
 options = args.parse_args()
 os.chdir(options.repo)
 
-with contextlib.suppress(FileNotFoundError):
-    os.remove(options.output)
-
 csv_data = {}
 # Too few fields
 missing_fields = []
@@ -103,6 +100,9 @@ with open(options.input, encoding="utf-8") as csvfile:
 
         csv_data[file] = row
 
+with contextlib.suppress(FileNotFoundError):
+    os.remove(options.output)
+
 for root, _, files in os.walk(options.repo):
     for filename in files:
         filetype = Path(filename).suffix