Quote:
Originally Posted by gweeks
Just try to take a copyright violation to court in the US without having registered the copyright with the library of congress.
In the US you
1) have to register the copyright to file the claim in the court system. No registration then no filing of an infringement claim.
2) If the filing occurs after the infringement you can only claim actual damages rather than statutory damages. That means you have to prove actual damages.
This is not how most other countries interpret the Berne convention. Also, the Berne copyright period of life+X only apply for works first published after 1977. Anything published before that have periods set by the laws that were in effect before 1977 as modified by later extensions. None of which are life+X. That's why everything published in 1923 just had its copyright expire n the US regardless of the death date of the author.
Greg
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Don't confuse the existence of the copyright with the ability to prosecute a case for infringement. the copyright does exist, under US law, at the time of creation. What does not exist is the right to sue for infringement, unless/until the copyright is
registered. That's because the registration is
a form of legal notice. It has to do with legal defenses.
That
does not mean that the copyright
doesn't exist at the time of creation. It does. But without legal notice (the registration) you cannot sue. It's a way to try to
limit frivolous infringement suits. One does not change the other.
Hitch