Summary Analysis
R-19
DATE: 2019-03-04
DOCKET: 17-571
NAME: Fourth Estate Public Benefit Corporation, Petitioner v. Wall-Street.Com, LLC, et al
WORTHY: False
OPINION: Court
AUTHOR: Ginsburg
JOINING: Roberts, Thomas, Breyer, Alito, Sotomayor, Kagan, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh
GOOD: Yes
PAGES: 12
Case Commentary
Laws be laws and ya got to follow them laws.At least some Copyright protections require a creative work to be registered with The Copyright Office prior to seeking relief under those very same protections. Yeah, I'm not reading the law or researching the facts any further than that. So, it's all pretty vague. It doesn't matter much as the case was about determining when a creative work has been registered by The Copyright Office. Um, it's registered when the work is registered... rather than when the registration is applied for.
Fourth Estate leased works to Wall-Street.Com, who published the work on their site. When Fourth Estate subsequently tried to register the work with The Copyright Office, I presume this (previous publication by a third party) confused the issue as to who owned the work; and thus, was why The Copyright Office denied registration.
But that's a bit of supposition on my part and not what this case was about.