Good Intentions Gone Wrong : The Copyright Act's Safe Harbor Provision and the Requirement of Actual Knowledge.

Journal article

1 online resource (pages 400)

In 2008, Congress enacted the Copyright Act’s safe harbor provision which called for more lenient treatment of mistakes in copyright applications. The enactment helped to close the loophole where a copyright application could be invalidated for a material mistake in the application, precluding a cause of action for copyright infringement and statutory damages. However, interpreting and applying the safe harbor provision has given rise to disputes among district and appellate courts. There is a split on what standard the statutes language requires to render a copyright application invalid. Under the safe harbor, in part, invalidation of a copyright requires that the alleged copyright holder included the inaccuracy “with knowledge.” Courts have been split on whether this language evinces an actual knowledge standard versus a showing that the alleged copyright holder included the inaccuracy with an intent to fraud or as some courts phrase it, the inaccuracy was included with a “scienter of fraud.” The most recent interpretation of the safe harbor provision was handed down by the Supreme Court in 2022 in a case named Unicolors, Inc. v. H&M Hennes & Mauritz, L.P. In this case, the Court side steps the dispute of the lower courts and interprets the safe harbor provision as requiring a showing of actual knowledge solely. This case note argues that the decision was flawed for various reasons, creates an impossible standard, and calls on Congress to amend the language of the statute and require that the safe harbor provision includes an intent to fraud standard as opposed to an actual knowledge standard.

Crossref

John Marshal Review of Intellectual Property Law, Volume 23, Issue 1, 2024, page 381.

John Marshal Review of Intellectual Property Law

[Chicago, Illinois] : UIC Review of Intellectual Property Law, 2024.

English

https://repository.law.uic.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1528&context=ripl

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