There’s No Crying in Copyright Infringement

The Copyright Act allows the recovery of actual damages; but not everything is included. Rachel Ann Nunes wrote a novel called Bid for Love. Tiffanie Rushton admitted that she copied some of Bid for Love for her book, The Auction Deal. Rachel sued Tiffanie for copyright infringement. Rachel claimed that her actual damages were the lost sales of two books she didn’t write because of the emotional distress she suffered as a result of the infringement. The court held that the Copyright Act does not provide for the recovery of damages for emotional distress. So Rachel had no actual damages. However, she still is entitled to statutory damages.

WHY YOU SHOULD KNOW THIS. The Copyright Act provides for injunctive relief, actual damages and, if the work was registered before the infringement, statutory damages and attorney’s fees. No question that copyright infringement can take an emotional toll on the owner of a copyright. Rachel tried to stretch the definition of actual damages to cover that emotional toll. But the Copyright Act does not stretch that far.