A valid copyright registration provides a copyright holder with important legal advantages, including the right to bring a “civil action for infringement” of the copyrighted work.
17 U. S. C. §411(a). Petitioner Unicolors, the owner of copyrights in various fabric designs, filed a copyright infringement action against H&M Hennes & Mauritz (H&M). A jury found in favor of Unicolors. H&M sought judgment as a matter of law, arguing that Unicolors could not maintain an infringement suit because Unicolors knowingly included inaccurate information on its registration application, rendering its copyright registration invalid. The alleged inaccuracy stemmed from Unicolors having filed a single application seeking registration for 31 separate works despite a Copyright Office regulation that provides that a single application may cover multiple works only if they were “included in the same unit of publication.” H&M argued that Unicolors did not meet this requirement because Unicolors had initially made some of the 31 designs available for sale exclusively to certain customers, while offering the rest to the general public.
The District Court determined that because Unicolors did not know when it filed its application that it had failed to satisfy the “single unit of publication” requirement, Unicolors’ copyright registration remained valid by operation of the safe harbor provision provided under §411(b)(1)(A). On appeal, the Ninth Circuit determined that it did not matter whether Unicolors was aware that it had failed to satisfy the single unit of publication requirement, because the safe harbor excuses only good-faith mistakes of fact, not law. Unicolors had known the relevant facts, so its knowledge of the law (or lack thereof) was irrelevant.
有效的著作权登记为著作权人提供了重要的法律优势，包括对享有著作权之作品提起“民事侵权诉讼”的权利。
本案上诉人Unicolors拥有各种织物布料设计的著作权，并对H&M Hennes & Mauritz（以下简称H&M）提起了著作权侵权诉讼。原审中，陪审团支持了Unicolors的主张。H&M随后申请法律认定方面的裁定，主张Unicolors在著作权登记申请中故意添加不准确的信息，导致其著作权登记无效，因此无权提起侵权诉讼。H&M所称的“不准确”源于Unicolors提交的一份同时覆盖31件独立作品的单一申请，而版权局曾有规定，一份申请只有在“包含在单一出版单位”的情况下才能覆盖多部作品。H&M认为Unicolors的申请未能满足这一要求，因为Unicolors曾将这31件作品中的一部分作品独家出售给某些特定客户，同时将其余的作品提供给一般公众。
地区法院裁定认为，由于Unicolors在提交登记申请时并不知道其未能满足“单一出版单位”的要求，基于§411(b)(1)(A)所规定的避风港规则，其著作权登记仍然有效。第九巡回上诉法院裁定认为，Unicolors是否知道其未能满足“单一出版单位”的要求并不重要，因为避风港规则只能豁免善意的事实认识错误而非法律认识错误。Unicolors在登记申请时已经知晓相关事实，因此其对法律的错误认识与本案无关。
A valid copyright registration provides a copyright holder with important and sometimes necessary legal advantages. It is, for example, a prerequisite for bringing a “civil action for infringement” of the copyrighted work. Additionally, a plaintiff in an infringement action normally cannot obtain an award of statutory damages or attorney’s fees for infringement that occurred prior to registration. To obtain registration, the author of a work must submit to the Register of Copyrights a copy of the work and an application. The application must provide information about the work. Some of this information is purely factual, but some of it incorporates legal conclusions. Ibid. If the Register determines that the work is copyrightable and meets other statutory requirements, she will issue a certificate of registration. The information on this certificate reflects the information that the copyright holder provided on the application.
有效的著作权登记为著作权人提供重要且有时是必要的法律优势。例如，有效的著作权登记是对所享有著作权之作品提起“民事侵权诉讼”的先决条件。此外，针对在登记之前发生的侵权行为，原告通常无法获得法定损害赔偿和律师费赔偿。作者须向著作权登记处提交作品的副本和相应的申请以获得著作权登记。该申请必须提供作品的相关信息。这些信息的一部分是纯粹事实性的，但其中一部分也包含着法律性的论断。若著作权登记处认定该作品具有可版权性且满足其他法定要求，著作权局将颁发登记证书。该证书上的信息反映了著作权人在申请中所提供的信息。
Naturally, the information provided on the application for registration should be accurate. Nevertheless, the Copyright Act provides a safe harbor. It says that a certificate of registration is valid
“regardless of whether the certificate contains any inaccurate information, unless—
“(A) the inaccurate information was included on the application for copyright registration with knowledge that it was inaccurate; and
“(B) the inaccuracy of the information, if known, would have caused the Register of Copyrights to refuse registration.”
在登记申请中提供的信息理应是准确的。尽管如此，《著作权法》（the Copyright Act）§411(b)(1)提供了一个避风港。它规定登记证书在这种情况下是有效的：
无论证书是否包含任何不准确的信息，除非:
（A）不准确的信息被包含在著作权登记申请中，且申请人明知该信息不准确；以及
（B）如果知道该信息是不准确的，著作权登记处将会拒绝登记。
The important point for our purposes is that a certificate of registration is valid even though it contains inaccurate information, as long as the copyright holder lacked “knowledge that it was inaccurate.” The question before us concerns the scope of the phrase “with knowledge that it was inaccurate.” The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit believed that a copyright holder cannot benefit from the safe harbor and save its copyright registration from invalidation if its lack of knowledge stems from a failure to understand the law rather than a failure to understand the facts. In our view, however, §411(b) does not distinguish between a mistake of law and a mistake of fact. Lack of knowledge of either fact or law can excuse an inaccuracy in a copyright registration. We therefore vacate the Court of Appeals’ contrary holding.
本案所关注的重点是，即使登记证书包含不准确的信息，只要著作权人缺乏“明知不准确”的认识，该登记证书仍是有效的。本案所面临的问题是，“明知不准确”一语的范围所指。第九巡回上诉法院认为，如果著作权人缺乏法律认识而非事实认识，则不能适用避风港规则，也无法使其著作权登记免于无效。然而，我们认为，§411(b)的避风港规则没有区分法律认识错误和事实认识错误，缺乏对事实或法律的正确认识均可以成为著作权登记信息不准确的豁免理由，因此，我们撤销上诉法院的相反判决。
Our reasons are straightforward. For one thing, we follow the text of the statute. See Hardt v. Reliance Standard Life Ins. Co., 560 U. S. 242, 251 (2010). Section 411(b)(1) says that Unicolors’ registration is valid “regardless of whether the [registration] certificate contains any inaccurate information, unless……the inaccurate information was included on the application for copyright registration with knowledge that it was inaccurate.” Both case law and the dictionary tell us that “knowledge” has historically “meant and still means ‘the fact or condition of being aware of something.’”
我们的理由是直截了当的。一方面，我们遵循成文法的法条原文，参见Hardt v. Reliance Standard Life Ins. Co., 560 U. S. 242, 251 (2010)。§411(b)(1)规定，Unicolors的登记是有效的，“无论证书是否包含任何不准确的信息，除非…不准确的信息被包含在著作权登记申请中，且申请人明知该信息不准确。” 判例和字典都告诉我们，“明知”（knowledge）在历史上且现在仍然意味着“意识到某件事的事实或状态”（the fact or condition of being aware of something）。
Unicolors says that, when it submitted its registration application, it was not aware (as the Ninth Circuit would later hold) that the 31 designs it was registering together did not satisfy the “single unit of publication” requirement. If Unicolors was not aware of the legal requirement that rendered the information in its application inaccurate, it did not include that information in its application “with knowledge that it was inaccurate.” §411(b)(1)(A) (emphasis added). Nothing in the statutory language suggests that this straightforward conclusion should be any different simply because there was a mistake of law as opposed to a mistake of fact.
Unicolors主张，在提交登记申请时，它并不知道（正如第九巡回法院后来所认为的那样）它在一份申请中共同登记的31件独立作品不符合“单一出版单位”的要求。如果Unicolors不知道导致其申请中的信息不准确的法律要求，则它并没有“明知该信息不准确”地将该信息包含在著作权登记申请中。法条中没有任何内容表明，这种直截了当的结论应该有任何不同，仅仅因为申请人存在的是法律认识错误而不是事实认识错误。
To the contrary, nearby statutory provisions help confirm that here “knowledge” refers to knowledge of the law as well as the facts. Registration applications call for information that requires both legal and factual knowledge. Inaccurate information in a registration is therefore equally (or more) likely to arise from a mistake of law as a mistake of fact. That is especially true because applicants include novelists, poets, painters, designers, and others without legal training. Nothing in the statutory language suggests that Congress wanted to forgive those applicants’ factual but not their (often esoteric) legal mistakes.
相反地，相关法条的规定有助于确认此处的“明知”同时指向法律和事实。著作权登记申请要求提供法律和事实两方面的信息。因此，登记申请中的不准确信息同样（或更多地）可能由法律错误而非事实错误产生，尤其在登记申请人包括小说家、诗人、画家、设计师和其他没有接受过法律训练的人的情况下更是如此。法条中没有任何内容表明，国会仅想要豁免这些申请人的事实认识错误，而不是他们的（通常是晦涩难懂的）法律认识错误。
For another thing, cases decided before Congress enacted §411(b) “overwhelming[ly held] that inadvertent mistakes on registration certificates [did] not invalidate a copyright and thus [did] not bar infringement actions.” We can find no indication that Congress intended to alter this well-established rule when it enacted §411(b).
另一方面，在国会颁布§411(b)之前，既有判例“压倒性地认为，登记证书上的无意错误不会使著作权无效，因此[没有]禁止著作权人提起侵权起诉”。我们找不到任何迹象表明国会在颁布§411(b)时打算改变这一既定规则。
Further, those who consider legislative history will find that history persuasive here. It indicates that Congress enacted §411(b) to make it easier, not more difficult, for nonlawyers to obtain valid copyright registrations. The House Report states that its purpose was to “improve intellectual property enforcement in the United States and abroad.”. It did so in part by “eliminating loopholes that might prevent enforcement of otherwise validly registered copyrights.” The Report specifically notes that some defendants in copyright infringement cases had “argued…… that a mistake in the registration documents, such as checking the wrong box on the registration form, renders a registration invalid and thus forecloses the availability of statutory damages.” Congress intended to deny infringers the ability to “exploi[t] this potential loophole.” Of course, an applicant for a copyright registration—especially one who is not a lawyer—might check the wrong box on the registration documents as a result of a legal, as well as a factual, error. Given this history, it would make no sense if §411(b) left copyright registrations exposed to invalidation based on applicants’ good-faith misunderstandings of the details of copyright law.
此外，那些关心立法史的人会发现下述历史很有说服力。它表明，国会颁布§411(b)，是为了让非律师的申请人更容易获得有效的著作权登记，而不是将其变得更加困难。众议院报告指出，其立法目的是“改善美国及海外的知识产权执法”。它这样做的部分原因是“减少可能阻止执行本应有效的登记著作权的漏洞”。报告特别指出，一些著作权侵权案件的被告“辩称……登记申请书中的错误，例如勾选了登记表上的错误方框而导致登记无效，从而丧失了获得法定损害赔偿的可能性”。国会打算剥夺侵权人“利用这一潜在漏洞”抗辩的能力。当然，著作权登记申请人，尤其是非律师的申请人，既可能因为法律错误，也可能因为事实错误而勾选了登记文件上的错误方框。鉴于这段历史，如果§411(b)基于申请人对著作权法细节的善意误解而使其著作权登记无效，那将是没有意义的。
A copyright registration is invalid if the registrant included materially inaccurate information in its application “with knowledge that [the information] was inaccurate.” In its petition for certiorari, Unicolors asked us to decide a question on which the Courts of Appeals were split: whether §411(b)(1)(A)’s “knowledge” element requires “indicia of fraud.” Pet. for Cert. i. Specifically, Unicolors argued that “knowledge” requires “inten[t] to defraud the Copyright Office.” Yet now, after having “persuaded us to grant certiorari on this issue,” Unicolors has “chosen to rely on a different argument in [its] merits briefing.” It no longer argues that §411(b)(1)(A) requires fraudulent intent and instead proposes a novel “actual knowledge” standard. Because I would not reward Unicolors for its legerdemain, and because no other court had, before today, ever addressed whether §411(b)(1)(A) requires “actual knowledge,” I would dismiss the writ of certiorari as improvidently granted.
如果申请登记人“明知（信息）不准确”，而在其申请中包含了实质性不准确的信息，则其著作权登记无效。在调卷申请书中，Unicolors要求我们就上诉法院有分歧的一个问题进行裁决：§411(b)(1)(A)中的“明知”是否要求具有“欺诈表现”（indicia of fraud）。具体而言，Unicolors主张“明知”要求具有“欺诈著作权登记处的意图”（intent to defraud the Copyright Office）。如今，在说服我们就此问题授予调卷令后，Unicolors在其案情简述中采用了另一套不同的论点。Unicolors不再主张§411(b)(1)(A)要求具备欺诈意图，而是提出一个新的“实际认识”（actual knowledge）标准。我不会听信Unicolors的诡辩，并且在此之前，没有任何其他法院处理过§411(b)(1)(A)是否要求“实际认识”的问题，因此我将驳回Unicolors的调卷申请，而不是轻率地授予调卷令。