Page:Fourth Estate Public Benefit Corporation v. Wall-street.com, LLC, et al..pdf/5

2 respondent Wall-Street.com, LLC (Wall-Street), a news website. The license agreement required Wall-Street to remove from its website all content produced by Fourth Estate before canceling the agreement. Wall-Street canceled, but continued to display articles produced by Fourth Estate. Fourth Estate sued Wall-Street and its owner, Jerrold Burden, for copyright infringement. The complaint alleged that Fourth Estate had filed “applications to register [the] articles [licensed to Wall-Street] with the Register of Copyrights.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 18a. Because the Register had not yet acted on Fourth Estate’s applications, the District Court, on Wall-Street and Burden’s motion, dismissed the complaint, and the Eleventh Circuit affirmed. 856 F. 3d 1338 (2017). Thereafter, the Register of Copyrights refused registration of the articles Wall-Street had allegedly infringed.

We granted Fourth Estate’s petition for certiorari to resolve a division among U. S. Courts of Appeals on when registration occurs in accordance with §411(a). 585 U. S. ___ (2018). Compare, e. g., 856 F. 3d, at 1341 (case below) (registration has been made under §411(a) when the Register of Copyrights registers a copyright), with, e. g., Cosmetic Ideas, Inc. v. IAC/Interactivecorp, 606 F. 3d 612, 621 (CA9 2010) (registration has been made under §411(a) when the copyright claimant’s “complete application” for registration is received by the Copyright Office).