The Letter: What a Filing Date Is Worth
A federal judge, a disbarred lawyer, a dead photographer's trust and a 14-day demand letter, and why all of them come back to the day a form reached the Copyright Office.
FactUnion VerifiedEvery fact on the episode's fact sheet was checked against its sources. Wrong facts were corrected. What this meansFacts checked 21 Oct 2026
Chapters (8)
About this episode
In June 2020 a federal judge in Manhattan sanctioned the most prolific copyright litigator in his courthouse. Part of the penalty was for lying about a date: when a photo's copyright had been registered. Della and Cal follow that date through the law, from a 1976 House Report to the crawlers, demand letters and contingency firms that grew up around it, a $1.17 million jury verdict, a $6.3 million judgment, and a small-claims board Congress built for exactly these fights.
It's a story about who gets paid when a picture gets taken without permission, who gets the letter, and why the answer depends less on the photograph than on when its paperwork arrived. The takeaway for a one-person studio is a filing habit. There's also one question nobody in the record answers: when a demand settles, how much of the money reaches the photographer?
Hosted by Della and Cal, performed by synthetic voices. Supported by ShotBreak.
Facts and sources
Every fact used in this episode, with the sources it was checked against. Download as data
193 of 193 recorded lines matched the checked script.
17 U.S.C. § 412 provides that “no award of statutory damages or of attorney’s fees, as provided by sections 504 and 505, shall be made for” infringements that began before the effective date of registration.
For published works, § 412 makes an exception “unless such registration is made within three months after the first publication of the work.”
A registration’s effective date is the date the Copyright Office receives the last of three items (application, deposit copy and fee), and a refused registration gets no backdated effective date.
The House Report (H.R. 94-1476) said that because registration of published works would no longer be compulsory, it “should therefore be induced in some practical way.”
The House Report said the three-month grace period exists for “newsworthy or suddenly popular works which may be infringed almost as soon as they are published.”
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According to the House Report, an owner who registers late still has an injunction and “actual damages plus any applicable profits.”
Statutory damages run $750 to $30,000 per work, up to $150,000 if the infringement is willful and as low as $200 if it is innocent, and attorney’s fees under § 505 are discretionary even with timely registration.
In June 2020, in Liebowitz v. Bandshell Artist Management, Judge Jesse Furman ordered Richard Liebowitz and his firm to pay more than $83,000 in attorney fees plus $20,000 for falsely claiming a copyright was registered before suit.
- Lawyer deemed 'copyright troll' must file sanctions opinion in all his cases, 2nd Circuit agreesabajournal.com
- https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4902222/liebowitz-v-bandshell-artist-management/courtlistener.com
- Court sanctions Liebowitz $103K! Requires service of a copy of the order on all of his clients and filing in all of his cases!! But can the Court do that? (via Passle)ipandmedialaw.fkks.com
Furman wrote: “The simple fact is that Mr. Liebowitz has a problem: He does not feel constrained by the truth and, when cornered, has no compunction about lying, even under oath.”
Furman’s Bandshell opinion called Liebowitz “one of the most frequently sanctioned lawyers, if not the most frequently sanctioned lawyer” in the Southern District of New York, and listed 40 cases criticizing him.
Furman ordered Liebowitz to serve the opinion on current clients and in pending and newly filed cases for a year, and to attach copyright registrations to every infringement case filed in the next year; the Second Circuit upheld the nationwide scope in a June 25 summary order.
Per Reuters as cited by the ABA Journal, the Southern District’s grievance committee ordered an interim suspension of Liebowitz in November 2020, pending investigation.
In a separate opinion ordering $8,745 in fees to NBCUniversal over a raccoon photo, Furman wrote that Liebowitz “has earned the dubious distinction of being a regular target of sanctions-related motions and orders.”
- Judge sanctions controversial copyright lawyer, notes 'growing body of law' on when to punish himabajournal.com
- Judge sanctions controversial copyright lawyer, notes ‘growing body of law’ on when to punish himedwardkundahlweb.wordpress.com
- Judge sanctions controversial copyright lawyer, notes ‘growing body of law’ on when to punish himedwardrkundahlsite.wordpress.com
The ABA Journal reported that Liebowitz had filed more than 700 copyright suits in Manhattan federal court since 2016.
Above the Law reported on March 14, 2024 that New York disbarred Liebowitz, and that the order recites, among other findings, that he disobeyed Magistrate Judge Debra Freeman’s order to produce registration documents.
In Fugnetti v. Bird B Gone (C.D. Cal., No. 8:19-cv-00847-SK, Magistrate Judge Steve Kim), judgment on the verdict ordered that the Dennis Fugnetti Photography Trust recover $1,175,420.18 from Bird B Gone, LLC, an entry CaseMine dates December 14, 2022.
The Higbee release describes the award as “over $1.17 million in profits” from retail products sold in packaging bearing the photo, and the jury rejected Bird B Gone’s implied-license defense.
The Fugnetti docket shows the cross-appeals (Ninth Circuit Nos. 23-55048 and 23-55092) voluntarily dismissed by stipulation in April 2023, and costs of $6,664.38 taxed against the defendant on May 2, 2023.
Judge Mark C. Scarsi entered a judgment against Pacifica awarding $150,000 in statutory damages for each of 42 willfully infringed photographs, totaling $6,300,000.
The Hargis judgment was registered in the Southern District of California on February 14, 2025, a writ of execution followed on February 18, 2025, and certificates of service for a bank-account levy were filed in March 2025.
CCB awards are capped at $15,000 per work and $30,000 per case.
Ward and Smith reports that through March 2026 the CCB had issued 25 contested final determinations and 22 default determinations, with 155 settlements.
Melissa Eckhause found that in the CCB’s first year pro se parties filed 73% of claims, and over 50% of those claims were dismissed before service on the defendant for not complying with filing requirements.
The CCB awarded $1,000 in statutory damages in Oppenheimer v. Prutton (Feb 28, 2023), and $3,000 by default in Hursey v. Lavaca LLC (Aug 24, 2023), based on photographer Dana Hursey’s normal licensing fees; Hursey v. Quinney and Hursey v. Hakimian Global got the same $3,000.
The Copyright Office opened its CASE Act study with a Notice of Inquiry on March 10, 2025, receiving 20 initial comments (including ImageRights and the Digital Media Licensing Association) and 3 replies (including the National Press Photographers Association).
Vendor blog PixGuard says retroactive-license demands to small businesses often open at $1,000 to $8,000 for one image, settle at 30 to 60% of the demand, and carry 10 to 14 day deadlines.
In stock photographer Robert Kneschke’s survey of 58 photographers, Shutterstock’s AI Contributor Fund paid a median of $0.0069 per portfolio image, paid every six months.
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Higbee & Associates' release says Fugnetti shot the bird-in-flight photo in 1999, that Bird B Gone used it for nearly 15 years after the relationship ended, including on packaging sold at Home Depot and Lowe's, and that Fugnetti died in 2020, after which his daughter, as trustee of his trust, continued the case.
From June 2022 to March 2025 the CCB received 1,222 claims; 470 were dismissed after compliance review, 187 for lack of valid proof of service, 114 respondents opted out, 94 settled, and there were 14 contested and 21 default final determinations.
