Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an opinion in Unicolors, Inc. v. H&M Hennes & Mauritz LP, No. 20-915 (Feb. 24, 2022), holding that 17 U.S.C. § 411(b) does not distinguish between a mistake of law and a mistake of fact, and that lack of either factual or legal knowledge can excuse an inaccuracy in a copyright registration under § 411(b)(1)(A)’s safe harbor provision.
Unicolors had sued H&M for infringement of Unicolors’ copyright registration covering various fabric designs. After a trial, a jury found in favor of Unicolors on its infringement claim. H&M moved for judgment as a matter of law, arguing Unicolors’ copyright registration was invalid. Specifically, H&M argued that it was improper for Unicolors to have filed a single application seeking registration for 31 separate works because the Copyright Office regulation permitting a single application to cover multiple works only applies to works included in a single unit of publication. The district court, finding that Unicolors did not know it had failed to satisfy the “single unit of publication” requirement when it filed its application, denied H&M’s motion. On appeal, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed. The Ninth Circuit concluded that Unicolors’ lack of knowledge on the “single unit of publication” requirement did not excuse its conduct, holding § 411(b) excuses only good faith mistakes of fact, not of law. The Supreme Court granted Unicolors’ petition for certiorari.
On review, the Supreme Court reversed. First, the Court determined that statutory construction principles confirmed the reference to “knowledge” in § 411(b) is broad enough to include both knowledge of facts and knowledge of law. Second, the Court noted the broader construction was consistent with pre-§ 411(b) case law, which held that inadvertent mistakes on registration certificates did not invalidate a copyright. Third, the Court determined the legislative history evidenced that Congress’s intent in enacting § 411(b) was to make it easier for nonlawyers to obtain valid copyright registrations by eliminating loopholes preventing enforcement of otherwise valid registrations. The Court rejected H&M’s arguments referencing the legal maxim that “ignorance of the law is no excuse” because, while the maxim has application with respect to the requisite mental state in criminal law, it does not apply in a civil case concerning the scope of a safe harbor.