Honest Application Mistakes Do Not Invalidate Copyright Registration

The Supreme Court holds that the Copyright Act's safe harbor provision preserves the validity of a copyright registration notwithstanding an inaccuracy in the underlying application based on a good-faith mistake—regardless of whether the mistake is one of fact or law.

On February 24, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court held that inaccurate information included in a copyright application stemming from an honest mistake (whether of fact or law) does not, as a matter of law, render the resulting registration invalid. Unicolors, Inc. v. H&M Hennes & Mauritz, L.P., Case No. 20-915. The Court vacated the Ninth Circuit's decision to the contrary.

The validity of the registration at issue in the case turned on proper construction of the phrase "with knowledge that it was inaccurate" from the Copyright Act's safe harbor provision, which provides that a registration certificate is valid, even if it contains inaccurate information, unless: (i) such information was included in the