Opinion ID: 537611
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Award of $90,000 in Statutory Damages

Text: 16 A copyright owner may elect an award of statutory damages instead of actual damages and profits. 17 U.S.C. Sec. 504(c)(1). Statutory damages in this action could have ranged from a minimum of $250 to a maximum $10,000 for infringement of any one work. Id. (emphasis added). If the infringement were willful, however, the maximum could be increased to $50,000 per infringed work. 17 U.S.C. Sec. 504(c)(2). 17 Here, finding that Powell willfully infringed Disney's copyrights, Mem. op. 698 F.Supp. at 12, the district judge elected to award $15,000 for each infringement he found. In explaining his decision on damages, the district judge said: 18 Six different infringements were proven by a preponderance of the evidence.... It is unnecessary to consider the precise application of the copyright to each of these examples. They all, without any doubt ... definitely infringe [Disney's] copyright.... These violations are not overlapping.... Each of these is subject to damages to be assessed pursuant to 17 U.S.C. Sec. 504(c)(2). The Court assesses $15,000 for each violation, or $90,000, plus interest from the date of judgment. 19 Mem. op. 698 F.Supp. at 13 (emphasis added). 20 The district court erred in assessing damages based upon six violations, mistakenly focusing on the number of infringements rather than on the number of works infringed. Both the text of the Copyright Act and its legislative history make clear that statutory damages are to be calculated according to the number of works infringed, not the number of infringements. 21 17 U.S.C. Sec. 504(c)(1) authorizes a judge to award damages for all infringements ... with respect to any one work. As the House Report on the bill explains, however, only one penalty lies for multiple infringements of one work. See H.R.Rep. No. 1476, 94th Cong., 2d Sess. at 162 (1976), U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 1976, pp. 5659, 5778 (A single infringer of a single work is liable for a single amount ... no matter how many acts of infringement are involved in the action and regardless of whether the acts were separate, isolated or occurred in a related series.... Moreover, although the minimum and maximum amounts are to be multiplied where multiple 'works' are involved in the suit, the same is not true with respect to multiple copyrights ... or multiple registrations.) (emphasis added). 7 22 The Act does not define work but explains that all the parts of a compilation or derivative work constitute one work. 17 U.S.C. Sec. 504(c)(1). Courts and scholars have gone further, however, in defining work for the purpose of determining damages. The Second Circuit has explained that separate copyrights are not distinct works unless they can live their own copyright life. 8 In the same vein, one of its district courts has determined that where separate copyrights have no separate economic value, whatever their artistic value, they must be considered part of [a] ... work for purposes of the copyright statute. 9 Nimmer has similarly stated that in order to qualify for a separate minimum award, the work which is the subject of a separate copyright would have to be in itself ... viable. Nimmer, supra at Sec. 14-04[E] at 14-40.13. 23 While Mickey and Minnie are certainly distinct, viable works with separate economic value and copyright lives of their own, we cannot say the same is true for all six of the Disney copyrights of Mickey and Minnie in various poses which the district court found to be infringed in this case. Mickey is still Mickey whether he is smiling or frowning, running or walking, waving his left hand or his right. Thus, we find that Powell's mouse-face shirts infringed only two of Disney's works. 10