District Court Predicts Eighth Circuit Would Apply Application Approach to Filing a Copyright Lawsuit
The District Court of Minnesota denied a motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction in Tri-Marketing, Inc. v. Mainstream Marketing Services, Inc., 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 42694 (5/19/09).
Tri-Marketing filed suit for copyright infringement. Tri-Marketing had submitted its copyright application and fees but had not yet received the registration. Mainstream moved to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction. The court noted the circuit split on this issue--some courts permit the lawsuit to proceed once the application is filed, while other courts require the plaintiff to get the registration first.
The court noted that the Eighth Circuit has not decided this issue. However, the Eighth Circuit cited language that indicated it would adopt the application approach in Action Tapes, Inc. v. Mattson, 462 F.3d 1010 (2006) (previously posted 1/10/07). The court adopted the application approach and denied the motion to dismiss.
This is interesting. Even in jurisdictions where you must have the registration I have found the expedited copyright registration procedure to be pretty efficient. In a recent case I had a registration in 2 days. I thought it was exceptionally fast.