Copyright Flash Report: Attorneys' Fees and Pre-1972 Safe Harbor

Objective Reasonableness Must Receive "Substantial Weight" in Copyright Attorney-Fee Shifting Decisions:Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., No. 15-375 (U.S. June 16, 2016)
 
Kagan, J. In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court clarified the Copyright Act's fee-shifting provision of 17 U.S.C. § 505, holding that district courts must give "substantial weight to the objective (un)reasonableness of a losing party's litigating position," while "taking into account all other relevant factors," without raising a presumption against granting fees where the losing party's position was reasonable. In so holding, the Court rejected the approach proposed by petitioner Kirtsaeng, under which courts would grant "special consideration to whether a lawsuit resolved an important and close legal issue and thus 'meaningfully clarifie[d]' copyright law," finding such an approach to be unworkable. The Court vacated the Second Circuit's decision and remanded the case to the district