U.S.Supreme Court holds mistakes of law covered by Copyright safe harbor

Attorney Steve® Copyright Law Essentials - Safe Harbors for Copyright Registration Defects

In this exciting episode of Vondran Legal Hour Attorney Steve® discusses copyright registration and defects thereto and how the copyright "safe harbors" come into play.  Plaintiff (Unicolors) filed a lawsuit and had their registration placed at issue apparently because they filed too many of their art/fabric designs in one application and Defendant argued there should have been separate applications.  In other words, they argued this was a 'legal" defect as opposed to factual (remember the old saying that ignorance of the law is no defense).  Well, it appears in copyright infringement it can be!  In essence, the court found this to be a trivial defect, not knowing and material, and held that the copyright safe harbor provision (cited below for your convenience) applies to both mistakes of law and fact.  The district court does not have to check with the copyright office where there are no issues of fraud or material defect.

Link to the case Unicolors, Inc. v. H&M Hennes & Muaritz, L.P. case

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