Copyright

Copyright protects original works of authorship — software, writing, photography, music, film, and design. We take copyright cases that can produce a substantial recovery. Many can’t, and we’d rather be candid than waste your time.

Two paths to a real recovery

A copyright case justifies a contingency only when it leads to a meaningful number. There are two ways that happens:

1. Real economic harm — the owner’s actual losses, or the infringer’s profits from using the work — that is substantial; or
2. A large number of separate works infringed, which multiplies statutory damages.

A claim involving a single work, with no provable losses and no meaningful infringer profits, rarely qualifies.

The registration trap

To recover statutory damages or attorney’s fees, the work must be registered with the U.S. Copyright Office before the infringement begins — or, for a published work, within three months of first publication. Register after the infringement starts, and statutory damages are off the table, even if the infringement continues. This one rule disqualifies many otherwise-valid claims.

What statutory damages are

When available, statutory damages run from $750 to $30,000 per work, in the court’s discretion — up to $150,000 per work if the infringement was willful, and as low as $200 for innocent infringement. But where only one work is at issue and there are no real damages — no meaningful infringer profits and no provable losses to the owner — the recovery is limited to that per-work range. In practice, courts almost never award at the top of the range, and cases settle well below it. So a realistic copyright case for us involves either many works or genuine, provable economic harm.

As with every matter we take on contingency, we look for clear liability, at least $5 million in damages, and a defendant who can pay.