Wednesday, April 10, 2019

Supreme Court Requires Copyrights to be Registered With Copyright Office Before Filing Lawsuit

Originally published by Steven Callahan.

On March 4, 2019, the United States Supreme Court issued its unanimous decision (available here) in Fourth Estate v. Wall-Street.com. The Court held that 17 U.S.C. § 411(a), which states that “no civil action for infringement of the copyright in any United States work shall be instituted until . . . registration of the copyright claim has been made in accordance with this title,” means that the Copyright Office must register the copyright before a lawsuit is filed. The Court rejected the argument that simply filing an application to register the copyright was sufficient to file a lawsuit.

The Copyright Office often takes many months to register a copyright (the average time presently is seven months, although expedited processing of registration is available for an additional $800 fee), so copyright owners are well advised to submit their copyright applications in a prompt manner. (There are limited statutory exceptions to the registration requirement, such as for those works vulnerable to predistribution infringement (e.g., a movie or musical composition).)

Note that, upon registration, a copyright holder can recover
for infringement that occurred both before and after registration.

Curated by Texas Bar Today. Follow us on Twitter @texasbartoday.



from Texas Bar Today http://bit.ly/2D6VgTN
via Abogado Aly Website

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