Opinion ID: 166199
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Subsequent Acts of Congress

Text: 57 Our interpretation of the Act is also supported by two of Congress's changes to the statute—one in 1988, and the other in April 2005. 58
59 In 1988, Congress considered the Berne Convention Implementation Act (Berne Act), which sought to ally the United States with a set of international rules and regulations, known as the Berne Convention, that protects intellectual property in the global marketplace and is adhered to by much of the global community. The Berne Convention eliminates most, if not all, formalities that are required to obtain and enforce copyrights. See Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, Art. 5(2) (The enjoyment and the exercise of these rights shall not be subject to any formality). 60 As Congress considered the Berne Act, a report issued by the Senate Judiciary Committee expressed concern that § 411(a)'s registration requirement was a formality incompatible with the text of the Berne Convention. See S.Rep. No. 100-352, at 14, reprinted in 1988 U.S.C.A.A.N. 3706, 3719 (the committee has concluded that section 411(a) . . . is incompatible with Article 5(2) of Berne.). The Senate Judiciary Committee proposed to alleviate this incompatibility by changing § 411(a) to read registration is not a prerequisite to the institution of a civil action for infringement of copyright. Id. at 46, 3743. As one senator said in arguing in favor of the amendment: 61 [r]egistration . . . [while] not, technically speaking, a condition for the existence of copyright, . . . is, however a precondition for the exercise of any of the . . . rights conferred by copyright. . . . This metaphysical distinction between the existence of a right. . . and the exercise of that right [is not] maintainable under. . . our legal tradition which disfavors . . . rights without remedies. 62 S. Rep. 100-352, at 18, 3723. However, the House of Representatives did not agree and rejected the Senate's proposed modification. See 134 Cong. Rec. H. 10091, 10095 (The House passed bill left current law intact, finding that current recordation and registration are not formalities prohibited by Berne.). 63 In the end, Congress passed a narrower amendment. The amendment added the language to § 411 excepting certain foreign works from the registration requirement—registration is necessary [e]xcept for actions for infringement of copyright in Berne Convention works whose country of origin is not the United States. 17 U.S.C. § 411. The legislative compromise created a two-tier solution. . . . Registration is continued as a prerequisite to suit by domestic authors. Only foreign origin works are excepted from the registration requirement. 134 Cong. Rec. H. at 10095 (emphasis added). 11 The result confirms our view of the Act: copyrights that originate in the United States must be registered before the owner can sue for infringement. See 17 U.S.C. § 411(a). Foreign copyrights, on the other hand, are enforceable at fixation. 64 At first glance, this bifurcated scheme seems illogical. However, when one considers the reasons for the scheme, it gains merit. The passage of the Copyright Act of 1976 created myriad incentives for copyright owners to register their copyrights, as discussed above. These incentives ensure that most significant work[s][are] registered and that the Library of Congress receives copies of these works. S. Rep. 100-352, at 20, 3725. While the most obvious incentive is that one cannot sue for infringement unless the copyright is registered, see 17 U.S.C. § 411(a), many of the incentives discussed above provide sound business reasons for registration wholly apart from the prospect of infringement litigation. S. Rep. 100-352, at 20, 3725. Thus, it is clear that in passing the original Copyright Act of 1976 and the Berne Act in 1988, Congress sought to create and retain the incentives to registration, make certain benefits available only to registrants, and, in fact, condition federal court intervention on registration of the copyright. The Berne amendments carve out an exception for foreign works that accommodate treaty concerns without compromising the essential jurisdictional requirements for domestic works. 65 It is also worth noting that in 1993 Congress again took up the question of whether to eliminate registration as a prerequisite to filing suit for infringement. See Copyright Reform Act of 1993, H.R. 897, 103d Congress (1993). The 1993 proposal went so far as to completely rewrite 17 U.S.C. §§ 410 and 411 so that registration was not a requirement to file an infringement suit. See id. Congress did not adopt the proposal. 66
67 On April 27, 2005 Congress amended portions of Title 17 through the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act of 2005, P.L. 109-9 (FECA). Specifically, FECA amended § 411 to allow a copyright owner to sue for infringement if the copyright is either registered or preregistered. FECA also amended 17 U.S.C. § 408 to require the Register to further define preregistration 12 As a result of this amendment, an additional class of works pending registration will support an infringement action. 68 The Register of Copyrights has yet to issue regulations or guidance regarding preregistration. We thus are not at a point to determine whether the works at issue in this case are eligible for preregistration. We note, however, that FECA was concerned, in large part, with the piracy of movies and the subsequent sale and distribution of illegal copies of movies. Whatever the Register of Copyrights eventually determines, however, the adoption of FECA further confirms our statutory analysis. Indeed, the availability of a preregistration scheme would in whole or in part address the problem presented by this case: the need to sue for infringement to prevent dilution of a copyright but the inability to do so without completed registration.