Submission + - 9th Circuit Rules on Copyright Registration Requir
David Weiskopf writes: The Ninth Circuit has officially joined the "application approach" camp, ruling in Cosmetic Ideas, Inc. v. IAC/Interactive Corp. (9th Cir. May 25, 2010) that a plaintiff satisfies the requirements of Section 411(a) of the Copyright Act by having filed (i.e. the Copyright Office having received) an application for copyright registration with the Copyright Office. Accordingly, in the Night Circuit, a plaintiff need not wait to file a copyright infringement suit until the Copyright Office has acted (accepted or rejected) on the application; filing of the application with the Copyright Office is sufficient. On the heels of recent rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court in Reed Elsevier, Inc. v. Muchnick (holding that Section 411(a))'s copyright registration requirement does not restrict a federal court's subject-matter jurisdiction), and the Southern District Court of New York's finding in Muench Photography v. Houghton Mifflin (see discussion in earlier posting) that certain compilation copyright registrations did not extend to the underlying works, the Ninth Circuit's ruling further places the importance of "copyright formalities" in the limelight.
