Registration v. Application: Is The Battle Over?

I was attending the recent annual meeting of the Copyright Society of the USA and listening to a presentation by the always eloquent Maria Palantes, the Registrar of Copyrights, when she made a comment that startled me regarding a controversial issue.

There has been an ongoing conflict as to the prerequisite for filing lawsuits and requesting damages in a copyright case.  The issue was whether you simply had to have filed the application, deposit material and fees or if you, in fact, had to have an actual final registration issued by the copyright office in hand before filing a lawsuit.  The difference has had significant implications.

Obtaining a Certificate of Registration can take anywhere from six weeks to over a year depending on the nature of the material for which the registration is sought, the method of filing, and/or U.S. Copyright Office backlog.  In most instances, upon discovery of an infringement, a person wishes to get into court fairly quickly and