The Registration Requirement Bars Claims Based On Unregistered Copyrights

The U. S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed the certification of a class of plaintiffs consisting of freelance authors (and the trade groups representing the authors) and subsequent approval of a settlement of these plaintiffs' copyright infringement claims arising out of the unauthorized electronic reproduction of their works. In Re Literary Works in Electronic Databases Copyright Litigation, Case No. 05-5943 (2nd Cir., Nov. 29, 2007) (Straug, J.; Walker, Jr., J. dissenting).

The named plaintiffs consist mainly of freelance writers who contracted with publishers to author works for print publication. The plaintiffs retained the copyrights in their works. Although the contracts did not grant the publishers the right to electronically reproduce those works or otherwise license them for electronic reproduction, the publishers did so. The plaintiffs brought this class action suit on the