§ 410. — Registration of claim and issuance of certificate.
[Laws in effect as of January 24, 2002]
[Document not affected by Public Laws enacted between
January 24, 2002 and December 19, 2002]
[CITE: 17USC410]
TITLE 17--COPYRIGHTS
CHAPTER 4--COPYRIGHT NOTICE, DEPOSIT, AND REGISTRATION
Sec. 410. Registration of claim and issuance of certificate
(a) When, after examination, the Register of Copyrights determines
that, in accordance with the provisions of this title, the material
deposited constitutes copyrightable subject matter and that the other
legal and formal requirements of this title have been met, the Register
shall register the claim and issue to the applicant a certificate of
registration under the seal of the Copyright Office. The certificate
shall contain the information given in the application, together with
the number and effective date of the registration.
(b) In any case in which the Register of Copyrights determines that,
in accordance with the provisions of this title, the material deposited
does not constitute copyrightable subject matter or that the claim is
invalid for any other reason, the Register shall refuse registration and
shall notify the applicant in writing of the reasons for such refusal.
(c) In any judicial proceedings the certificate of a registration
made before or within five years after first publication of the work
shall constitute prima facie evidence of the validity of the copyright
and of the facts stated in the certificate. The evidentiary weight to be
accorded the certificate of a registration made thereafter shall be
within the discretion of the court.
(d) The effective date of a copyright registration is the day on
which an application, deposit, and fee, which are later determined by
the Register of Copyrights or by a court of competent jurisdiction to be
acceptable for registration, have all been received in the Copyright
Office.
(Pub. L. 94-553, title I, Sec. 101, Oct. 19, 1976, 90 Stat. 2582.)
Historical and Revision Notes
house report no. 94-1476
The first two subsections of section 410 set forth the two basic
duties of the Register of Copyrights with respect to copyright
registration: (1) to register the claim and issue a certificate if the
Register determines that ``the material deposited constitutes
copyrightable subject matter and that the other legal and formal
requirements of this title have been met,'' and (2) to refuse
registration and notify the applicant if the Register determines that
``the material deposited does not constitute copyrightable subject
matter or that the claim is invalid for any other reason.''
Subsection (c) deals with the probative effect of a certificate of
registration issued by the Register under subsection (a). Under its
provisions, a certificate is required to be given prima facie weight in
any judicial proceedings if the registration it covers was made ``before
or within five years after first publication of the work''; thereafter
the court is given discretion to decide what evidentiary weight the
certificate should be accorded. This five-year period is based on a
recognition that the longer the lapse of time between publication and
registration the less likely to be reliable are the facts stated in the
certificate.
Under section 410(c), a certificate is to ``constitute prima facie
evidence of the validity of the copyright and of the facts stated in the
certificate.'' The principle that a certificate represents prima facie
evidence of copyright validity has been established in a long line of
court decisions, and it is a sound one. It is true that, unlike a patent
claim, a claim to copyright is not examined for basic validity before a
certificate is issued. On the other hand, endowing a copyright claimant
who has obtained a certificate with a rebuttable presumption of the
validity of the copyright does not deprive the defendant in an
infringement suit of any rights, it merely orders the burdens of proof.
The plaintiff should not ordinarily be forced in the first instance to
prove all of the multitude of facts that underline the validity of the
copyright unless the defendant, by effectively challenging them, shifts
the burden of doing so to the plaintiff.
Section 410(d), which is in accord with the present practice of the
Copyright Office, makes the effective date of registration the day when
an application, deposit, and fee ``which are later determined by the
Register of Copyrights or by a court of competent jurisdiction to be
acceptable for registration'' have all been received. Where the three
necessary elements are received at different times the date of receipt
of the last of them is controlling, regardless of when the Copyright
Office acts on the claim. The provision not only takes account of the
inevitable timelag between receipt of the application and other material
and the issuance of the certificate, but it also recognizes the
possibility that a court might later find the Register wrong in refusing
registration.
Registration of Claims to Copyrights and Recordation of Assignments of
Copyrights and Other Instruments Under Predecessor Provisions
Section 109 of Pub. L. 94-553 provided that: ``The registration of
claims to copyright for which the required deposit, application, and fee
were received in the Copyright Office before January 1, 1978, and the
recordation of assignments of copyright or other instruments received in
the Copyright Office before January 1, 1978, shall be made in accordance
with title 17 as it existed on December 31, 1977.''
Section Referred to in Other Sections
This section is referred to in section 101 of this title.
