These potentially valuable remedies are available only when the work has been registered promptly. It should be remembered, however, that there must be copying. Independent creation, even of the identical work, cannot infringe. And, of course, what is copied must be subject to copyright protection in the first place, as the Feist case described above demonstrates. To prove infringement, one must establish ownership of the copyright in question and copying.
Ownership normally is proven by the registration.
Access simply means a reasonable opportunity to view and copy, which is normal in the case of a widely circulated work. On occasion, if the similarity of two works is so striking that independent creation is virtually impossible, access will be found without further proof. Substantial Similarity occurs when the public familiar with the copyrighted work readily recognizes the infringement as a copy of the original. Infringing copyrights can be expensive. To begin, infringement can be enjoined, thus forcing the infringer to choose between contempt of court and inventory loss.