Tag: U.S. Copyright Office

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Business Law Cases Intellectual Property

Supreme Court Rules: Copyright Registration Required to File Suit

On March 4, 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court resolved an intriguing circuit split in Fourth Estate Public Benefit Corp. v. Wall-Street.com, LLC. Justice Ginsburg authored the unanimous decision, holding: “registration occurs, and a copyright claimant may commence an infringement suit, when the Copyright Office registers a copyright.” The Court rejected the argument by Fourth Estate that the registration requirement of the Copyright Act was accomplished by filing an application for registration. In its rationale, the Court leaned heavily on the language of the statute.

The Copyright Act (17 U.S.C. §411(a)) reads: “no civil action for infringement of the copyright in any United States work shall be instituted until preregistration or registration of the copyright claim has been made in accordance with this title. In any case, however, where the deposit, application, and fee required for registration have been delivered to the Copyright Office in proper form and registration has been refused, the applicant is entitled to institute a civil action for infringement if notice thereof, with a copy of the complaint, is served on the Register of Copyrights.”

Simply put, the Court stated that, “if application alone sufficed to ‘make’ registration, §411(a)’s second sentence –allowing suit upon refusal of registration –would be superfluous.”

The Court examined other provisions of the statute to interpret the meaning of §411. The Court found that the phrase “after examination” in §401 meant that “registration,” as used in the statute, follows action taken by the Register. The statute provides an exception to the registration requirement before suit through preregistration of a work that may be “vulnerable to predistribution infringement –notably a movie or musical composition,” and permits the start of an infringement action prior to registration for some live broadcasts.

How will the fashion business be affected by the ruling? This being an industry that spans the world, many creators argued in amicus briefs that requiring pre-suit registration for U.S. authors and domestic works placed them at a disadvantage since such a requirement conflicted with the Berne Convention’s de-emphasis on copyright formalities. However, the Court’s decision noted that the U.S. Congress had the opportunity to amend the copyright statute in 1988, 1993, and 2005, but declined to remove the registration formality in each instance.

The Court also pushed back against Fourth Estate’s argument that the Copyright Office’s processing time for applications was too slow, and instead pointed out that expedited processing was available, albeit for an additional $800 fee. The Court also indicated that the Copyright Office’s slow processing times could be improved should Congress address budgetary and staffing shortages.

In practice, the amount of time the Copyright Office takes to process an application is less relevant once the registration issues.

Since copyright subsists from creation in tangible form, requiring registration prior to commencing a suit for infringement does not preclude copyright owners from recovering compensatory damages from infringement that occurred prior to registration. A registration within three months of first publication will relate back to the publication date for purposes of recovery of statutory damages and attorneys’ fees; and the effective date of the registration is the date on which the copyright application is submitted and completed with the submission of the deposit copy and payment of the registration fee.

The Court’s decision is understandable as it is compelled by the statutory language. But what does this mean for creators, practitioners, and other stakeholders? Only the future will tell the long term effects in the fashion industry, but the message remains clear: if a design that is protectable by copyright is important, register it as soon as you can, preferably before it is distributed or displayed to the public, if you want to obtain the best protection and the broadest remedies in the United States.

Credit: Candace R. Arrington

See post: Supreme Court to Resolve When Copyright Suit Can Commence

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Cases Intellectual Property

Copyright Registration, Redux

Textile Pattern Quilting Machine

Registering copyrightable designs as “unpublished” collections can be an efficient and cost effective way to register multiple two dimensional print patterns in a single registration. But to derive the benefits of registration, you need to be able to identify the designs included. Standard Fabrics International, Inc. (“Standard Fabrics”) learned that lesson the hard way, when it sued Louise Paris, Ltd. and its retail customer for copyright infringement of one of the fabric designs it claimed was part of its “Spring Summer, Collection 1”.

To succeed in a suit for copyright infringement, you must prove that the design in issue was registered with the Copyright Office. To register, you must submit a copy of the design with an application for registration.

Standard Fabrics’ registration identified its work only as “Spring Summer, Collection 1”.  Nothing in the title referred specifically to the particular design number that was the subject of the suit. Therefore, Standard Fabrics was required to prove that the design was actually included in the collection registered. Because Standard Fabrics could not prove the design infringed was part of the collection registered, it was denied judgment on its infringement claim.

The problem Standard Fabrics faced can be avoided. In an application to register a collection of designs, be sure to set forth the design number for each design covered by the application. Each individual design in the collection can be uploaded separately on the Copyright Office’s electronic website and appropriate records of the upload can be printed and maintained.

The Copyright Office generally maintains deposit copies of unpublished works. It will provide copies of these for use by the lawyers for parties to litigation, but it requires a written application in its proscribed form and time to search for, reproduce and certify its records. The fee charged for this service can be hundreds of dollars, as the Copyright Office will charge for its time as well as imposing copying and certification fees.

But beware, the Copyright Office does not undertake to retain deposit copies of published works. Full term retention must be arranged for a fee.

Credit: Helene M. Freeman

Here’s a previous post that may be of interest…

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Federal & State Laws General / Musings Intellectual Property

Compendium of Copyright Office Practices – 3rd Edition

DesignersLookingAtComputerPhotos

The U.S. Copyright Office delivered a Christmas present to the creative industries: The third edition of the Compendium of Copyright Office Practices. Unlike its predecessors, the third edition is not merely a set of instructions to the Copyright Office staff for administering the registration and recordation functions of the Register of Copyrights. The new version is intended to provide guidance to applicants for copyright, as well, setting forth what is and is not copyrightable and identifying who is entitled to claim copyright ownership.

Fabric and jewelry designers will find its lists of non-copyrightable subject matter and its examples of the distinction between copyrightable and non-copyrightable designs instructive. While the Compendium reflects significant judicial decisions, collected in a table of authorities, it also ventures into areas that have been considered unsettled.

This is particularly apparent in the section devoted to the copyright in websites. Insofar as the Register of Copyright is concerned, the format, layout and “look and feel” of a website are not copyrightable; but the content—text, photographs, audio and audio-visual works—are copyrightable. The website creator may have a copyright in the collection or compilation of these materials, consisting of their selection and arrangement, even if it has not created the contents. If the website’s terms of service require a user to convey “exclusive rights” in user generated content, uploading by the user of his or her content to the site will entitle the site to claim ownership of the copyright in the content. But the Copyright Office does not make registration easy. It requires the users who authored the content to be identified by name in the application for registration. If there are too many to name all, the application should list several authors and indicate the number of additional authors and the staff of the Copyright Office may ask for a more complete list to verify that the identification of authors of user-generated content has been maintained by the site owner. And any registration for the content on a website will pertain only to the particular version submitted with the application, so new matter added after registration will not be covered by the prior registration. Although it may be made available for display throughout the world, a website is considered an “unpublished work”, unless downloading or sharing of content is authorized.

The Compendium does not have the force of law and the Copyright Office has frankly stated that it has addressed unsettled areas in the hope that its reasoning will be considered persuasive should the issues be presented in future cases. But the Compendium does control how the Copyright Office will address applications for registration and a review of its provisions will assist applicants for copyright in avoiding common problems that can impede registration. It is readily available on the Copyright Office website, www.copyright.gov, and each chapter can be downloaded or accessed separately as a pdf.

Credit: Helene M. Freeman