Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/18pdf/17-571_e29f.pdf
Page Number: 9.0

6 

FOURTH ESTATE PUB. BENEFIT CORP. v. 
WALL-STREET.COM, LLC 
Opinion of the Court 

448  (2005)  (declining  to  read  “the  same  words”  in  con- 
secutive  sentences  as  “refer[ring]  to  something  totally
different”).

The  third  and  final  sentence  of  §411(a)  further  per-
suades us that the provision requires action by the Regis-
ter before a copyright claimant may sue for infringement. 
The sentence allows the Register to “become a party to the 
action  with  respect  to  the  issue  of  registrability  of  the 
copyright  claim.”    This  allowance  would  be  negated,  and 
the  court  conducting  an  infringement  suit  would  lack  the
benefit  of  the  Register’s  assessment,  if  an  infringement
suit  could  be  filed  and  resolved  before  the  Register  acted
on an application.

Other provisions of the Copyright Act support our read-
ing of “registration,” as used in §411(a), to mean action by 
the Register.  Section 410 states that, “after examination,” 
if  the  Register  determines  that  “the  material  deposited
constitutes copyrightable subject matter” and “other legal 
and formal requirements . . . [are] met, the Register shall
register the claim and issue to the applicant a certificate of
registration.”  §410(a).  But if the Register determines that
the  deposited  material  “does  not  constitute  copyrightable 
subject  matter  or  that  the  claim  is  invalid  for  any  other 
reason,  the  Register  shall  refuse  registration.”    §410(b).
Section  410  thus  confirms  that  application  is  discrete 
from,  and  precedes,  registration.  Section  410(d),  further-
more,  provides  that  if  the  Copyright  Office  registers  a 
claim,  or  if  a  court  later  determines  that  a  refused  claim 
was  registrable,  the  “effective  date  of  [the  work’s]  copy-
right registration is the day on which” the copyright owner
made a proper submission to the Copyright Office.  There 
would  be  no  need  thus  to  specify  the  “effective  date  of  a 
copyright registration” if submission of the required mate-
rials qualified as “registration.”

Section  408(f)’s  preregistration  option,  too,  would  have 
little  utility  if  a  completed  application  constituted  regis-