Re: Exclusive jurisdiction -- remand or dismiss?

> 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.

> I get the impression that you want to make the life for copyright holders
> infinitely easier than the public's right to have clear record of who
> owns what.

Well, if the reason to argue for registration is that it creates a record of rightsholders, it's a weak argument because the Copyright Office's records are woefully incomplete. Should I count the ways? I don't think I have to. It's been done here in other threads. The Copyright Office is now studying the problem in terms of what it calls "orphan works," meaning works whose rightsholders cannot be identified readily. The comments that have been submitted in the study demonstrate that *most* rightsholders cannot be identified from copyright registrations.

That alone should be enough to persuade us to revamp the present system-- it's a failure on its own terms. It's irrelevant to copyright, since copyright is automatic, and it fails as a useful record of rightsholders. So what are its remaining benefits? There seems to be only one--to qualify registrants for statutory damages. Is that reasonable?

If registration provided substantial benefits to society, the benefits it once provided, the greater reward of registration might be justified. But now the greater reward has become disproportionate and unjustified. It's been argued numerous times here the registration is easy and inexpensive. Why, then, does it earn the registrant such substantial benefits? What is the social value of registration that justifies the greater benefits? I don't see one.

>> 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.

For individual creators, the problem with the present system is the confusion between knowing your copyright is automatic and not knowing that taking advantage of the automaticity (is that a word?) will disadvantage you if you are infringed. To my mind, the remedy is to remove the cause of the confusion. A good writer revises a confusing paragraph; a good legislature revises a confusing law.

I would be happy to see a return to the old system of registration being required, but that's unlikely, so I would settle for a system that didn't grant such vastly different remedies to those who do and do not register. What I find most unfair is the granting of attorney fees. For all but the best financed, the possibility of winning attorney fees from the defendant is the only way they can sue. All winners of infringement lawsuits should be granted attorney fees.

• Mike Bradley www.techpubs.com