The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Monday, March 4, 2019, that a
copyright owner may not file an infringement lawsuit until the
Copyright Office has registered the work at issue. In a unanimous
decision authored by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, the Court ruled
that the Copyright Act's requirement that a work is
"registered" before a lawsuit is filed means that the
Copyright Office has actually granted a registration, not just that
the application has been submitted.
The case is Fourth Estate Public Benefit Corp. v.
Wall-Street.com LLC et al., which was on appeal from
the Eleventh Circuit. Fourth Estate Public Benefit Corp. is a news
organization that produces online journalism and then licenses its
articles to websites, while retaining the copyright to the
articles. Wall-Street.com had obtained licenses to several articles
produced by Fourth Estate and was required to remove all of the
content from its website before canceling its account. However,
when Wall-Street
