Opinion ID: 740251
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: creations' copyright infringement claims

Text: 7 Creations argues that the district court should not have dismissed its copyright infringement claims because the record contains sufficient direct evidence for a factfinder 2 to conclude that the McCains copied, i.e., used, Creations' original designs as models for their own designs. We perceive no error in the district court's dismissal of Creations' claims. Not all factual copying constitutes legally actionable copyright infringement. 3 To determine whether an instance of copying is legally actionable, a side-by-side comparison must be made between the original and the copy to determine whether a layman would view the two works as substantially similar. 4 Although that question typically should be left to the factfinder, we conclude that in the present setting the district court did not reversibly err by deciding that, as a matter of law, the McCains' tee-shirts differed from Creations' line drawings in too many respects for a layman to conclude that the works were substantially similar. 8 Neither did the district court err in comparing the McCains' tee-shirts to Creations' registered black and white line drawings, rather than to the ultimate rendition of those line drawings on Creations' tee-shirts. 5 Although registration with the copyright office is not a prerequisite to copyright protection, it is a prerequisite to maintaining an infringement lawsuit. 6 Thus, before proceeding to court, a plaintiff must register each copyright that he seeks to enforce. 9 On the other hand, registration with the copyright office is a jurisdictional prerequisite to filing a copyright infringement suit; 7 therefore, to the extent Creations' complaint included any claims for infringement of its tee-shirts (distinct from its line drawings), the district court had no jurisdiction. Accordingly, the district court's judgment must be modified to make it a dismissal for want of subject matter jurisdiction (and hence without prejudice to the merits) instead of a dismissal on the merits--but only insofar as that judgment pertains to claims for infringement of the tee-shirts themselves. In all other respects, including the dismissal on the merits of the claims for infringement of the line drawings, we affirm the judgment of the district court.