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No matter how right you are, you need to register a copyright before filing suit. Section 411(a) of the Copyright Act requires registration of a copyright before bringing suit. Federal Circuits are split on how to interpret this. Some circuits say filing an application is enough. Other circuits say the plain language of the statute requires actual registration. In Fourth Estate Public Benefit Corporation v. Wall-Street.com, LLC, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals went with registration means registration. Wall-Street licensed content from Fourth Estate. After the license expired, Wall-Street continued to post Fourth Estate’s content without permission. Fourth Estate applied for registration and then filed suit before the works were actually registered. In affirming the dismissal of the suit, the Eleventh Circuit focused on the fact that the Copyright Office had to examine the application before registration. So filing the application can never be enough.
WHY YOU SHOULD KNOW THIS. As often happens, Fourth Estate probably didn’t have a mechanism to regularly register its copyrights. Although the application process is pretty straightforward and the Copyright Office fees are very affordable ($35 to $55 per application), many businesses see copyright registration as a “nice to have” instead of a “need to have”. If a copyright owner doesn’t have regular application process, what should the owner do when an infringement occurs? The Copyright Office has a special handling process where for a filing fee of $800, it will expedite a decision regarding registration. The usual registration process can take several months to complete. The special handling process takes one to three weeks.