First, the Court determined that the district court correctly apportioned joint and several liability among the defendants by assessing which defendants were responsible for which acts of infringement based on the defendants’ distribution or sale of the fabric among one another or to end consumers. In short, based on a particular defendant’s upstream or downstream position in the distribution chain, and the “but for” cause of infringement within the chain, a defendant could be jointly and severally liable with certain other defendants, but not all defendants could be jointly and severally liable with all other defendants.When statutory damages under 17 USC § 504(c)(1) (c)(1) are elected in lieu of actual damages and profits, ) the number of statutory damages awards available in a particular matter depends on the number of individual works infringed and the number of separate infringers. Here, the Ninth Circuit affirmed that there was only one work at issue (Desire’s floral print textile) and considered whether the Copyright Act authorizes multiple statutory damages awards where one infringer is jointly and severally liable with all other infringers, but the other infringers are not completely jointly and severally liable with one another.

Escape Faces $736 Million in Damages With a jury trial on damages set to beginApril 27, 2015 (and later adjourned to May 4, 2015), the Record Companies elected to pursue statutory rather than actual damages.[2] Under U.S. copyright law, statutory damages may range from $350 to $30,000 (17 U.S.C. §504(c)(1)).However, in the case of willful infringement, the range dramatically increases to a possible maximum of $150,000 per infringed work (17 U.S.C. §504(c)(2)). With a total of 4,907 infringed sound recordings at issue, Escape faced liability for a potential $736 million in damages.

BWP alleged that Paste recklessly or willfully displayed at least one of BWP’s copyrighted photographs on its website without BWP’s authorization, that thousands of people viewed the image(s), and that Paste subsequently realized increased revenue or traffic from the display.BWP requested that the court enter judgment against Paste under 17 U.S.C. § 501 et seq., and that the court award statutory damages against Paste in the amount of $150,000 per violation pursuant to 17 U.S.C. § 504(c), or in the alternative BWP’s actual damages and Paste’s “wrongful profits” in an amount to be proven at trial.The case is BWP Media USA Inc. v. Paste Media Group, LLC, Case No. 1:13-cv-02064-AT, United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, and is assigned to Judge Amy Totenberg.Agency and Distribution Agreements On June 5, 2013, Carreras & Lemoine, LLP (“Carreras”), a Georgia law firm with multilingual attorneys that offers legal services to French businesses and individuals, filed two suits against Alpi Transmission (“Alpi”), alleging that Alpi, a corporation organized and residing in France, infringed on its copyrights when it used and reproduced documents Carreras had produced for Alpi, for which Carreras was never compensated.In the first complaint, Carreras alleges that it produced a distribution agreement for Alpi, but that Alpi has yet to pay Carreras $1,032.

k. To willfully infringe a copyright, the defendant must have had actual knowledge of the infringement or have acted with reckless disregard or willful blindness. Here, no reasonable jury could have found on the evidence presented at trial that Defendant Zazzle Inc. ("Zazzle") willfully infringed any copyrights. Although Plaintiff argued that Zazzle could have done more to detect and avoid potential infringement, as a matter of law, Zazzle's failure to take any of these particular steps is not a sufficient basis for a finding of willful infringement. Accordingly, the Court GRANTS Defendant's renewed motion for judgment as a matter of law on the question of willful infringement and reduces the judgment to 530,000 for each of the five images that exceeds the statutory limit for ordinary infringement.Willfulness Requires Actual Knowledge, Recklessness, or Willful BlindnessA copyright owner can only recover damages in excess of $30,000 per infringed work if the infringement was "willful." 17 U.S.C. § 504(c). "The copyright owner has the burden of proving willfulness." Friedman v. Live Nation Merch., Inc., 833 F.3d 1180, 1186 (9th Cir. 2016).As set forth in a series of recent Ninth Circuit decisions in a variety of copyright contexts, "willful infringement does not require actual knowledge; a showing of recklessness or willful blindness is sufficient."See, e.g., Unicolors, Inc. v. Urban Outfitters, Inc., 853 F.3d 980, 992 (9th Cir. 2017).Pursuant to this standard, a copyright defendant may be liable for willful infringement if it fails to make any "attempt to check or inquire into" the copyright status of a design when it "has a general awareness" that the design might be unauthorized,Unicolors, Inc., 853 F.3d at 991-992, or if the defendant uses "an approval process that never explicitly asks about copyrights at all,"Friedman, Inc., 833 F.3d at 1186, or if the defendant deliberately sells infringing products after receiving a cease-and-desist notice. Wash. Shoe Co., 704 F.3d at 674.But i

547 F. Supp. 2d 356 (S.D.N.Y. 2008). 379 F. Supp. 2d 1110 (D. Colo. 2005). 17 U.S.C. § 504(a).Id. § 504(c)(1).Id. § 504(c)(2).Id. Endnotes.

The Ninth Circuit then turned to the actual language of the Copyright Act that “permits a copyright owner to elect an award of statutory damages in lieu of actual damages and profits.” Citing, 17 U.S.C. §504(c)(1). This section allows the recovery of “an award of statutory damages for all infringements involved in the action with respect to any one work for which any one infringer is liable individually or for which any two or more infringers are liable jointly and severally.”

Total damages in any single proceeding (excluding attorney’s fees and costs, discussed above) are capped at $30,000, regardless of the number of claims and the type of claims (infringement, DMCA, or mixed). And, while a claim can be asserted prior to issuance of a copyright registration, the registration must issue before the Board can award damages or issue any other final determination.For infringement claims, actual damages and profits will generally be determined in accordance with existing case law regarding 17 U.S.C. § 504(b), subject to the overall cap above. Statutory damages, however, while generally determined in accordance with 17 U.S.C. § 504(c), will be modified as follows:Works registered prior to infringement or within three months of first publication will be eligible for statutory damages of up to $15,000 per work (and subject to the $30,000 overall cap)Works that were not registered prior to infringement will—only for purposes of the Board—be eligible for statutory damages of up to $7,500 per work (and subject to a reduced overall cap of $15,000)The Board may not consider whether infringement was willful, but may consider whether the infringer has agreed to “cease or mitigate the infringing activity”The CASE Act does not provide specific guidance about damages for DMCA claims.

Early registration also enables a copyright owner to seek statutory damages, attorneys’ fees, and costs for infringement that occurs after the effective date of registration. Under the Copyright Act, an infringer is liable for either (1) actual damages and any additional profits of the infringer, or (2) statutory damages in an amount set by a court between $750 and $30,000 for each of plaintiff’s copyrighted works infringed. 17 U.S.C. §504. Statutory damages are sometimes preferable because actual damages and additional profits can be difficult to prove.

83, No. 12, p. 2546.10 17 U.S.C. § 504(c)(1).11 17 U.S.C. § 504(c)(2).12 Buc International Corp. v. International Yacht Council Limited, 489 F.3d 1129 (11th Cir. 2007).13 Fed. Reg. Vol.

The threat of statutory damages can often help encourage an accused infringer to stop the at-issue infringing activity.[1] 17 U.S.C. § 504(c)(1).[2]Id.