[20190307]LSB10202_版权持有人何时可以起诉最高法院将解决版权登记方面的电路分歧.pdf

CRS Legal Sidebar Prepared for Members and Committees of Congress Legal SidebarLegal Sidebari i When Can Copyright Holders Sue?: Supreme Court to Resolve Circuit Split on Copyright Registration Updated March 7, 2019 UPDATE (March 7, 2019): On March 4, 2019, the Supreme Court issued its opinion in Fourth Estate Public Benefit Corp. v. Wall-S. Justice Ginsburgs opinion for a unanimous court held that a copyright holder must wait for the Copyright Office to either grant or deny an application for registration before he may sue for copyright infringementthe so-called “registration approach.” The Court rejected the “application approach,” previously followed by some lower courts, which had allowed the copyright holder to sue immediately after he had submitted an application for registration to the Copyright Office. The Court primarily relied on other uses of “registration” in the Copyright Act to conclude that an application alone was insufficient to “make” a registration within the meaning of 17 U.S.C. 411(a). Nonetheless, the copyright holder may recover damages both before and after the registration, as consistent with the Copyright Acts three-year statute of limitations. The origina