When Can a Copyright Holder Sue? Important IP Case Will Yield Answer (YNOT)

Read the full article by Gene Zorkin at YNOT.com 

WASHINGTON – Back in June, I wrote about three intellectual property-related cases with potential implications for rightsholders and content creators. One of these was Fourth Estate Public Benefit Corporation v.  Wall-Street.com, which at that time had just been granted certiorari by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The question presented by the case is this: “Whether ‘registration of [a] copyright claim has been made’ within the meaning of§ 411 (a) when the copyright holder delivers the required application, deposit, and fee to the Copyright Office, as the Fifth and Ninth Circuits have held, or only once the Copyright Office acts on that application, as the Tenth Circuit and, in the decision below, the Eleventh Circuit have held.”

The case is of significance to adult industry rightsholders for the same reason it’s important to any other manner of rightsholder: The court’s decision will define the point in the copyright registration process at which a rightsholder can bring a lawsuit against an alleged infringer.

Since copyright applications take time for the Copyright Office to act upon and content creators often publish works before the application has been granted – after which they are often quickly pirated by third parties – the outcome of this case is particularly important to rightsholders who frequently turn to the courts as a means of preventing illegal distribution of their works. 

Gene Zorkin has been covering legal and political issues for various adult publications (and under a variety of different pen names) since 2002.