Fourth Estate Public Benefit Corporation v. Wall-Street.Com, LLC

139 S.Ct. 881 (2019)

Facts

P is a news organization producing online journalism. P licensed works to D, a news website. The license agreement required D to remove from its website all content produced by P before canceling the agreement. D canceled but continued to display articles produced by P. P sued for copyright infringement. The complaint alleged that P had filed “applications to register [the] articles with the Register of Copyrights.” Because the Register had not yet acted on the applications, the District Court granted D's motion to dismiss the complaint. The Eleventh Circuit affirmed. The Register of Copyrights refused registration of the articles D had allegedly infringed. The Supreme Court granted certiorari.