Copyright is the exclusive right to reproduce, distribute, perform, display, and otherwise exploit an "original work of authorship," such as certain literary, dramatic, musical, or other artistic works. Copyright protection is secured automatically when the work is created, or "fixed in any tangible medium of expression." Although an author need not register his or her work with the U.S. Copyright Office to obtain copyright protection, registration does come with several advantages. For instance, registration is necessary before a plaintiff may file an infringement suit, and if registration is made within three months after publication of a work, the court may award the plaintiff statutory damages and attorney's fees rather than actual damages and profits alone. A copyright owner's exclusive right to reproduce and distribute his or her work was the subject of litigation in a 2001 Supreme Court case, New York Times Co. v. Tasini. In Tasini , six freelance authors who had contributed articles to several publications, including The New York Times , Newsday , and Time , sued when the publishers licensed rights to copy and sell the articles to electronic databases such as Lexis/Nexis. The publishers argued that, because their magazines and newspapers were collective works composed of the authors' individual articles, section 201(c) of the Copyright Act permitted them to reproduce and distribute the articles as part of a "revision" of those collective works. The Supreme Court disagreed. It held that the Copyright Act does not permit publishers to reproduce freelance works electronically when they lack specific authorization to do so, effectively requiring publishers to obtain a separate license from the author if they wish to electronically reproduce written works. As a consequence of Tasini , many freelance works were removed from the electronic databases. Shortly after the Court decided Tasini, three preexisting class action infringement suits, which had been suspended pending the decision, were activated and consolidated in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. A fourth, nearly identical action was coordinated with that consolidated action. Together, these claims comprise the litigation discussed in this report. Like the Tasini case , Reed Elsevier v. Muchnick is a class action lawsuit. Class actions allow one or more named plaintiffs to sue on behalf of a larger group of people when joining all members of the group would be impracticable; the members of the group raise similar claims, which present common issues of law or fact; and the named plaintiffs fairly and adequately protect the interests of other class members. Litigation may proceed only after the court has certified the class, and even settlement or voluntary dismissal of the suit requires the court's approval. Any class member may object to a settlement proposal, but, once made, the objection may only be withdrawn with the court's permission. The plaintiffs in Reed Elsevier consist of individual authors and trade groups representing authors who produced written works for certain publishers on a freelance basis. The publishers had licensed the articles from the freelance authors for print publication but later reproduced the articles in their electronic databases without compensating or otherwise obtaining the consent of the authors. Based on their copyrights in the freelance works, the plaintiffs brought suit against the publishers and the electronic database services for copyright infringement . After the Tasini decision had affirmed the plaintiffs' right to control electronic reproduction of their works, the district court referred the parties to mediation. In 2005, after more than three years of negotiations, the parties reached an agreement that sorted plaintiffs' claims into three groups for compensation purposes. Category A claims concerned copyrights that were eligible for statutory damages and attorney's fees under the Copyright Act. Category B claims concerned copyrights that qualified for actual damages only. Category C claims, by far the most numerous, largely involved copyrights that were unregistered, and therefore their owners were precluded from bringing individual suits for damages of any sort. The settlement assigned a damages formula to each type of claim. Category A claimants received a flat fee. Category B claimants received the greater of either a flat fee or a percentage of the original price of the work. Category C claimants also received the greater of either a flat fee or a percentage of the original price of the work. However, if the cost of all claims (plus the cost of notice, administration, and attorney's fees) exceeded $18 million, then the amount paid to Category C claimants was reduced—potentially to zero—before the claims of Category A and B claimants were affected. This feature was called the "C-reduction." In return for financial compensation, the plaintiffs agreed to release all past, present, and future claims against the defendants related to their articles' appearance in electronic databases. Having reached an agreement, the plaintiffs and defendants moved the district court for class certification and settlement approval. Objectors opposed the motion on the ground that the settlement was inadequate and unfair to Category C claimants because they were paid little and singled out for reduction if the total claims exceeded $18 million. Objectors also maintained that the disparate treatment of Category C claimants illustrated that the named plaintiffs, who each possessed at least some registered copyrights, did not adequately represent those absent class members who possessed only unregistered copyrights. The defendants responded that Category C claimants were adequately represented and treated fairly because they would otherwise have been unable to bring actions for infringement at all under 17 U.S.C. §411(a) because their copyrights were unregistered. After prolonged proceedings, the district court granted final class certification and final settlement approval in September 2005. Objectors appealed, again challenging the settlement's fairness and the adequacy of the named plaintiffs' representation. Before hearing oral argument, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals "became concerned that the District Court and the parties had passed over a nettlesome jurisdictional question" and sua sponte ordered the parties to address "whether the District Court had subject-matter jurisdiction over claims concerning the infringement of unregistered copyrights." Due to their mutual interest in achieving class certification and settlement approval at this stage, both plaintiffs and defendants argued that the Copyright Act's registration requirement is not jurisdictional in nature. They contended that, if a plaintiff brings a single claim based on a registered copyright, the district court acquires jurisdiction over any and all related copyright claims, even if those other claims arise from unregistered copyrights. They also argued that jurisdiction in this case was proper because the named plaintiffs' works were registered. A divided panel of the Second Circuit disagreed. The majority opinion first observed that Congress provides federal courts with only limited subject-matter jurisdiction. District courts derive their jurisdiction in copyright actions from two sections of Title 28 of the U.S. Code, §1331 and § 1338. The first is a general grant of original jurisdiction over civil actions arising under federal law, and the second provides courts with a more specific grant of original jurisdiction over copyright infringement cases. However, the appellate court asserted that Congress has supplemented these basic jurisdictional grants with a separate statutory section—§411(a) of the Copyright Act (17 U.S.C.§411(a)), which "limits a district court's subject-matter jurisdiction to claims arising from registered copyrights only." Relying on its opinions in Well-Made Toy Mfg. Corp. v. Goffa Intl. Corp. and Morris v. Bus. Concepts, Inc. and distinguishing the Supreme Court's ruling in Eberhart v. United States , the appellate court held that the requirement of copyright registration prior to an infringement suit is jurisdictional and that the phrase "copyright claim" referred to each claim within a purported class. Thus, because many of the plaintiffs' copyrights were unregistered, the Second Circuit held that the district court lacked the authority to certify the class and, as a result, lacked jurisdiction to approve the settlement. It also held that this "jurisdictional defect" precluded supplemental jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. §1367(a) as well. Judge Walker dissented, arguing that, although the Second Circuit had labeled §411(a) as jurisdictional in the past, the Supreme Court's ruling in Eberhart , which encouraged lower courts to "more carefully distinguish between true jurisdictional bars and claim-processing rules that may be waived," merited a re-evaluation of the copyright registration requirement. Categorizing §411(a) as an "enforcement mechanism" rather than a "rights-creating statute" and relying on Second Circuit precedent that "not all members of a settlement-only class need to possess a valid cause of action under the applicable law," he concluded that "the fact that some of the otherwise presumably valid copyrights have not been registered is an insufficient basis for undoing this class-action settlement." On March 2, 2009, the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari to review the case on the following question: "Does 17 U.S.C. §411(a) restrict the subject-matter jurisdiction of the federal courts over copyright infringement actions?" 17 U.S.C. §411(a) reads as follows: [N]o civil action for infringement of the copyright in any United States work shall be instituted until preregistration or registration of the copyright claim has been made in accordance with this title. In any case, however, where the deposit, application, and fee required for registration have been delivered to the Copyright Office in proper form and registration has been refused, the applicant is entitled to institute a civil action for infringement if notice thereof, with a copy of the complaint, is served on the Register of Copyrights. The Register may, at his or her option, become a party to the action with respect to the issue of registrability of the copyright claim by entering an appearance within sixty days after such service, but the Register's failure to become a party shall not deprive the court of jurisdiction to determine that issue. Petitioners in the case (Reed Elsevier et al.) argued that the §411(a) registration requirement is a mandatory prerequisite to suit, not a restriction on the court's jurisdiction.