Copyright in Forigen Works

The Usa is a political party to the Berne Convention, an international copyright marriage adopted past 165 countries. Under the Berne Convention, all party countries must recognize the copyright of works of authors from every other Berne Convention country. Under the Berne Convention copyright is automatic and does not require formal registration.

In improver, in the United states, works starting time published outside the U.s.a. do not need to exist registered prior to filing a copyright infringement claim. In this way, foreign works are provided greater protection than U.S. works, which must exist registered in society to obtain a judgment under the Copyright Deed.

With automatic protection of works from 165 countries (including all industrial, developed countries with the notable exception of Taiwan) and the power to bring a lawsuit in U.Due south. Courts, what is the betoken of obtaining a U.Southward. Registration for a foreign work?

The curt respond? Yous get a bigger hammer.

Specifically, registration of any copyrighted work in the U.S. prior to infringement occurring allows the copyright holder to seek statutory amercement and attorney's fees.

Why is this important? Ii reasons. First, it's ever nice to accept an opportunity to argue that some or all of your chaser'southward fees should be paid past someone else. 2d, it is frequently extremely difficult to testify actually damages in a copyright case. Accept for example a photo published on a website. If another website uses the same photo what are the actual damages to the copyright owner? Statutory damages allow the court to set the damages based on the facts of the instance (due east.one thousand. purpose of infringing use, intent, etc.) rather than the bodily damages (perhaps none) incurred by the copyright owner. Statutory damages range from $750 to $xxx,000 per infringement and can go as high as $150,000 if the court finds that the infringement was "willful."

The Problem with the Net

In addition to information technology simply being a "practiced idea" to register a foreign work in the United States, the cyberspace has made the question of where a work is fist published more hard to determine. In several District Court cases, the question has arisen every bit to whether a work kickoff published on a foreign website was actually simultaneously published world-broad. If the work was first published both in the United States and another country, under U.South. copyright police, the piece of work is considered a U.S. work requiring registration prior to litigation.

Bottom line: If you want to make certain you have the ability to file a lawsuit in the U.S. with the biggest hammer possible, you must annals your work with the U.S. Copyright Office.