Comments on: September 25 roundup

By: David C

David C — Thu, 26 Sep 2019 02:35:02 +0000

In reply to MattS. MattS, yes there is such a requirement. I refer you to 17 USC 411(a):

Except for an action brought for a violation of the rights of the author under section 106A(a), and subject to the provisions of subsection (b), no civil action for infringement of the copyright in any United States work shall be instituted until preregistration or registration of the copyright claim has been made in accordance with this title.

By: MattS

MattS — Wed, 25 Sep 2019 17:50:03 +0000

In reply to Hugo S. Cunningham.

“One safeguard has been a requirement to register a work before you can sue for infringement”

No, there is no such requirement. You can sue without a registered copyright, but it limits the type of relief you can ask for. In any copyright suit you can ask for actual damages or statutory damages (plaintiff must pick one or the other up front, can’t leave it to the judge / jury or ask for both), injunctive relief can also be asked for. The only thing that requires registration is statutory damages. An then, you don’t just have to register before filing suit, the copyright needs to have been registered before the alleged infringement took place.

On the other and you can sue for copyright infringement and seek either an injunction or actual damages instead of statutory damages and the copyright doesn’t need to be registered at all.

By: Hugo S. Cunningham

Hugo S. Cunningham — Wed, 25 Sep 2019 15:48:53 +0000

If CASE passes, I see trolls buying up Facebook accounts by the millions, perhaps on a profit-sharing basis. Everything you photograph, write, or compose is automatically copyrighted, though it has not occurred to you to abuse it. One safeguard has been a requirement to register a work before you can sue for infringement, but CASE would remove the registration requirement.

Some questions:

Will it be possible for a Facebook poster to rescind a trolling agreement, after he finds all his friends and relatives ostracizing him? (After one of them got stung with a four-figure CASE judgement.)

(CASE would not require registration, but…)
How easy is it to find out if a photograph has been registered for copyright? Does one have to manually go through millions of registered photos looking for a match, or is there an automated process?

By: Hugo S. Cunningham

Hugo S. Cunningham — Wed, 25 Sep 2019 15:24:33 +0000

The CASE Act, terrible for the public, also sounds bad for the Facebook model, driving away users. If a single instance of retweeting someone else’s photo or post, or posting any photo of your own that might include copyrighted material in the background, or any quote (even embedded in your own composition), can set you up for thousands of dollars in automatic damages, why play with Facebook? Playing on the freeway might offer better odds.

Facebook could dramatize this to users by blacking out screens, the way tech companies did to mobilize opposition to SOPA several years back. Apparently, however, Facebook does not want a new fight with the legacy-entertainment and plaintiff’s-bar interests behind CASE. Facebook can still make money in an insipid centralized broadcast environment like what we had in the 1970s, as long as competitors are prevented from offering something better.