Fourth Estate Public Benefit Corp. v. Wall-Street.com, LLC
United States Supreme Court
139 S. Ct. 881 (2019)
Fourth Estate (plaintiff) licensed articles to Wall-Street.com (defendant), which kept displaying them after cancelling the license despite a requirement to remove all such content. Fourth Estate sued for infringement, but at the time had only applied for copyright registration on the articles — the Copyright Office had not yet acted on the applications. The trial court dismissed for failure to first obtain registration, and the appellate court affirmed; the Supreme Court granted certiorari to resolve a circuit split over when "registration" occurs under Section 411(a).
Whether the Copyright Office must act on a copyright registration application before the copyright holder may bring a civil infringement action, absent an applicable statutory exception.