Re: Re: Exclusive jurisdiction -- remand or dismiss?

At 9:00 AM -0400 10/15/05, John P. McNeill wrote:
>I think the problem is even more fundamental than that. The US needs to
>eliminate the requirement of registration as a prerequisite to filing a
>lawsuit. The following points provide just brief statements and/or
>summaries of the issues:
>
>1. One of the stated purposes of the Berne Convention is to make copyright
>available to all.
>
>2. When the US [finally] adopted the Berne Convention, the implementing
>legislation passed by Congress eliminated the notice and registration
>requirements. Now a person has copyright rights as soon as pen is laid to
>paper (assuming, of course, the basic requirements of copyright are met).
>
>3. Unfortunately, the implementing legislation appears not to have gone far
>enough. Congress maintained the requirement that a registration is required
>in order to bring an infringement lawsuit.
>
>4. Under current US law a person can have copyright rights, but be without
>a means to enforce those rights.
>
>5. Does this amount to a right without a remedy?? (Not really but)

Not really at all. You can't enforce it without a complaint and filing fee and civil cover sheet and a summons and a return of service either. The registration is just one more piece of paper, and you can mail it in.

>6. Yet a foreign copyright owner can bring a lawsuit in a US court without
>having a US registration.

So it should be. We didn't set up the Copyright Office, with your hard-earned tax dollars, to register foreign claims to copyright ownership.

>7. I agree with the idea of providing extra or additional protection to
>copyright holders that provide notice (an infringer's loss of some defenses)
>and to those that register their works (statutory damages, atty fees), but
>do not believe that registration should be the ticket into court.
>Any other thoughts?
>

Registration is a good thing. Together with the deposit requirement, it records and assembles our intellectual heritage. And it helps you run down the copyright owner when you want to buy some of his rights. And it gives you one element of your claim -- prima facie ownership of the copyright. It's a bargain.

John Noble Received on Tue Oct 18 2005 - 01:40:01 GMT