The District Court of the Southern District of New York, in the case of
Archie MD, Inc. v. Elsevier, Inc., recently clarified the standard by which a copyright registration may be considered valid despite containing inaccurate information.
For many copyright owners, especially those attempting to register works of visual arts, determining whether a work is published or unpublished for registration purposes is one of the more challenging issues and an impediment to registration.
According to Nancy Wolff the court determined that “If an applicant knew its application contained inaccurate information, and if the Register of Copyrights would have refused registration had she known of this inaccurate information, then a subsequent registration certificate is invalid for purposes of filing a copyright infringement action.
“While the plaintiff in this case was not considered to have knowledge that its works were published at the time of registration, those filing registrations after the later cases clarifying what is published will no longer have the benefit of this uncertainty.
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Because the Copyright Office would deny registration of an application with inaccurate information as to the works’ publication status, it is highly recommended that creators register works of visual art before any licensing agreements are signed or files are delivered for further distribution.
“Otherwise, published works, if photographs, can be registered by the photographer under a group registration of photographs application, but published and unpublished works are still required to be filed separately. Until this requirement is revised, visual artists will continue to face impediments to successful and effortless copyright registration.” Wolff continued.
Read Wolff’s entire article
here.