Statutory damages for

copyright infringement Copyright infringement (at times referred to as piracy) is the use of works protected by copyright without permission for a usage where such permission is required, thereby infringing certain exclusive rights granted to the copyright holder, s ...

are available under some countries'

copyright law A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, educatio ...

s. The charges allow copyright holders, who succeed with claims of infringement, to receive an amount of compensation ''per work'' (as opposed to compensation for losses, an

account of profits An account of profits (sometimes referred to as an ''accounting for profits'' or simply an ''accounting'') is a type of equitable remedy most commonly used in cases of breach of fiduciary duty. It is an action taken against a defendant to recover t ...

damages At common law, damages are a remedy in the form of a monetary award to be paid to a claimant as compensation for loss or injury. To warrant the award, the claimant must show that a breach of duty has caused foreseeable loss. To be recognised at ...

per infringing copy). Statutory damages can in some cases be significantly more than the actual damages suffered by the rightsholder or the profits of the infringer. At least in the United States, the original rationale for statutory damages was that it would often be difficult to establish the number of copies that had been made by an underground pirate business and awards of statutory damages would save rightsholders from having to do so.

Statutory damages in the United States

In the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

, statutory damages are set out in of the

U.S. Code In the law of the United States, the Code of Laws of the United States of America (variously abbreviated to Code of Laws of the United States, United States Code, U.S. Code, U.S.C., or USC) is the official compilation and codification of the ...

. The basic level of damages is between $750 and $30,000 per work, at the discretion of the court.

Plaintiff A plaintiff ( Π in legal shorthand) is the party who initiates a lawsuit (also known as an ''action'') before a court. By doing so, the plaintiff seeks a legal remedy. If this search is successful, the court will issue judgment in favor of t ...

s who can show

willful infringement Willful may refer to: * Willful blindness, intentionally putting oneself in a position where oneself will be unaware of facts that would render oneself liable * Willful damage, vandalism * Willful violation In the North American legal system and ...

may be entitled to damages up to $150,000 per work. Defendants who can show that they were "not aware and had no reason to believe" they were infringing copyright may have the damages reduced to "not less than" $200 per work. Under , statutory damages are only available in the United States for works that were registered with the

Copyright Office The United States Copyright Office (USCO), a part of the Library of Congress, is a United States government body that maintains records of copyright registration, including a copyright catalog. It is used by copyright title searchers who are ...

prior to infringement, or within three months of publication.

References

{{law-stub United States copyright law Judicial remedies Copyright infringement

Statutory damages in the United States

See also

References