Cameo Clips

The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York decided that it lacked subject matter jurisdiction over a claim for actual damages in an infringement suit in which the plaintiff filed for but hadn't yet obtained a certification of registration from the U.S. Copyright Office. DMBJ Productions v. TMZ TV, 08 Civ. 6160 (S.D.N.Y. 2009). DMBJ Productions sued over the alleged unauthorized inclusion in TMZ's TV entertainment-news show of the plaintiff's footage of Jennifer Lopez entering a TV studio. Section 411(a) of the Copyright Act provides that “no action for infringement of the copyright in any United States work shall be instituted until preregistration or registration of the copyright claim has been made in accordance with this title.” DMBJ applied for but had not yet received a certificate of registration.

District Judge Deborah A. Batts initially noted that the “plain language of this section rejects the notion that submission of the application for registration is sufficient to confer federal question jurisdiction over a claim for copyright infringement.” (In a case pending before it, the U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether registration is a jurisdictional requirement under '411(a). In re Literary Works in Electronic Databases Copyright Litigation, 509 F.3d 116 (2d Cir. 2007), cert. granted sub nom., Reed Elsevier Inc. v. Muchnick, 129 S.Ct. 1523 (2009).) TMZ TV is based in California, but the district judge also noted: “Defendants contend that complete diversity of citizenship is lacking in this action because Plaintiff DMBJ and Defendant Time Warner [TMZ's parent company] were both citizens of New York when the action commenced. Defendant Time Warner has put forward a good faith basis ' for the claim that its principal place of business is in New York, at One Time Warner Center in New York City.”