Intellectual Property Attorney Lynn Alstadt's Article on Registration of Foreign Works to Collect Statutory Damages Published by World Media Law Report

Lynn J. Alstadt is the author of an article titled "Tech Registration of foreign works is required to collect statutory damages," published in the July 30, 2009, edition of the World Media Law Report, a weekly email service that provides special reports, updates and news roundups of media developments from more than 30 jurisdictions. Alstadt is a shareholder in the Intellectual Property Section of Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney PC.

As Alstadt explained in the article, "The owner of copyrights in works created outside the United States cannot collect statutory damages for infringement in the United States unless the copyrights were registered in the United States prior to the infringement." The article explained that the only exceptions are copyrights for works that qualify as a live broadcast and copyrights registered in the United States after the infringement but within three months of publication of the work.

Alstadt cited the case Football Association Premier League Ltd. v. YouTube Inc. as an example. In that case, "the United Kingdom-based Football Association Premier League Ltd. and 14 other copyright owners filed a class action lawsuit against YouTube Inc. and its parent Google Inc. The complaint alleged that YouTube and Google infringed their copyrights by posting on the YouTube website television programming, videos, sound recordings, and other material in which they had copyrights. The copyright owners asserted claims for statutory damages and punitive damages. The court dismissed the plaintiffs' claim for punitive damages against YouTube and Google, stating, "There is no circumstance in which punitive damages are available under the Copyright Act of 1976."

"The decision," Alstadt concluded, "Should encourage owners of popular foreign works to register copyrights in those works in the United States to preserve the right to claim statutory damages."