Copyright Infringement Complaint Checklist: Registration, Elements, Venue, and Remedies

By Casey Scott McKay · 2026-01-29

This is the working checklist for taking a copyright infringement matter from the intake call to a filed, served, and defensible complaint in federal district court, in ten phases. It starts at the registration gate of Section 411(a) and Fourth Estate, then moves through evidence preservation and web capture built to authenticate under Federal Rule of Evidence 902(13), chain of title and standing under Section 501(b), the works-in-suit schedule that makes Section 412 a per-work question, and pre-suit demand and DMCA takedown without losing the forum to a declaratory judgment race. Later phases cover forum selection under Section 1338(a) and the broader copyright venue rule of Section 1400(a) of Title 28, counts that survive Rule 12, the election between actual and statutory damages under Section 504, and filing and service mechanics down to Form AO 121. It closes on the early defenses you should already have answered in the complaint: Section 411(b) invalidity after Unicolors, Section 301 preemption, Dastar, the Section 512 safe harbor, and the Section 507(b) accrual fight after Warner Chappell. Every item carries the rule, the fee, the form number, or the specific way practitioners get it wrong, and one invented matter runs top to bottom.

IP and Technology > Copyright | Checklist | Published 29 January 2026 - Updated 23 June 2026 | Casey Scott McKay - marksy.us

Summary. Ten phases carrying a copyright infringement matter from the intake call to a filed, served, defensible complaint. The registration gate under 17 U.S.C. § 411(a) and Fourth Estate; evidence capture built to authenticate under Fed. R. Evid. 902(13); chain of title and standing under § 501(b); the works-in-suit schedule that makes § 412 a per-work question; demand and takedown without losing the forum to a declaratory judgment race; jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1338(a) and the broader copyright venue rule of § 1400(a); counts that survive Rule 12; the damages election; filing and service down to Form AO 121; and the early defenses you should already have answered. Rule, fee, and trap under each item, with one invented matter carried the whole way.

Keywords: copyright infringement complaint checklist · fourth estate registration gate · special handling 37 cfr 201.3(d) · deposit copy request · copyright chain of title · section 501(b) standing · works-in-suit schedule · section 412 registration timing · statutory damages election · section 504(c) · dmca section 1202 cmi · copyright venue 1400(a) · exclusive jurisdiction 1338 · litigation hold and spoliation · rule 4(m) service · form ao 121 · section 411(b) unicolors · section 507(b) limitations · copyright claims board

What this checklist is for

Use it when a client owns a work, someone else is using it, and federal court is on the table. It is the operational distillation of two companion documents and re-teaches neither: the doctrine of copying, filtration, and substantial similarity is in Proving Copyright Infringement, and the reasoning, model language, and cost tables are in Filing a Copyright Infringement Complaint in Federal Court. This is the page you keep open while you work.

Who should use it. Litigation counsel filing the case; IP counsel deciding whether there is a case worth filing; in-house counsel pricing enforcement before outside counsel is engaged.

What you need before you start. The works list with creation and first-publication dates; every registration number and certificate; every agreement touching authorship or transfer; the licensing rate card plus three executed licenses at those rates; dated captures of every infringing use; and a Copyright Office deposit account, because Phase 1 costs money on day one.

| Phase | What it settles | |---|---| | 1 — Clear the registration gate | Whether the client may lawfully file at all, and on which works | | 2 — Preserve the evidence | Whether the infringement is still provable a year from now | | 3 — Prove the chain of title | Whether your named plaintiff has standing under § 501(b) | | 4 — Build the works-in-suit schedule | What the case is worth, work by work | | 5 — Notice, demand, takedown | Whether it settles for the cost of a letter — and whether you keep the forum | | 6 — Choose the forum, plead venue | Which filtration rules and which calendar govern | | 7 — Draft the complaint | Whether you survive Rule 12 | | 8 — Plead and preserve remedies | Whether you get money, an injunction, both, or a fee award against you | | 9 — File, serve, manage | Whether the clocks run for you or against you | | 10 — Neutralize the early defenses | Whether the first ninety days go on your terms |

The matter carried through. Ines Baptiste is a Providence photographer. On 12 March 2026 a former assistant tells her that Harbormark Hotel Group, Inc. — a Delaware corporation headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut, forty-one properties across New England, two in Rhode Island — has fourteen of her coastal photographs on its website, in a 2024 print brochure, and in two 2024 email campaigns. Her gutter credits are gone and the IPTC creator, credit, and copyright fields are stripped from the files. Two images also surfaced on Tidebank Media, a stock aggregator, uploaded by a freelancer used by Harbormark's agency, Fennel & Roe, and licensed onward to thirty-one third parties. Baptiste wants the images down, a number that makes the year whole, and a rule that stops it happening again — in that order.

Phase 1 — Clear the registration gate

[ ] Pull the Copyright Office public catalog record for every work and print it to PDF the same day. The Office's record and the client's certificates disagree more often than clients expect, and the registration number, effective date, and first-publication date drive Phases 4, 8, and 10.
[ ] Sort every work into one of six buckets: registered; unregistered, no urgency; unregistered, litigation imminent; unpublished and pre-release; live broadcast; foreign Berne work.
- Authority. 17 U.S.C. § 411(a); Fourth Estate Public Benefit Corp. v. Wall-Street.com, LLC, 586 U.S. 296, 301-02 (2019) (the Register must have acted; a pending application is not registration). Registration is a claim-processing rule, not jurisdictional. Reed Elsevier, Inc. v. Muchnick, 559 U.S. 154, 157 (2010).
- Trap. Filing on a pending application. Dismissal is without prejudice, Cortes-Ramos v. Martin-Morales, 956 F.3d 36, 42-43 (1st Cir. 2020), but the complaint tolls nothing and the oldest infringements can age past 17 U.S.C. § 507(b) while you re-file.
[ ] File any unregistered work you intend to sue on with a special handling request.
- Authority. 37 C.F.R. § 201.3(d): $800 per claim on top of the filing fee (currently $45 Single Application, $65 Standard, $55 for a group of up to 750 published photographs under 37 C.F.R. § 202.4(i)). "Prospective litigation" is a permitted ground and routinely yields a certificate in one to two weeks.
- Trap. The request is a Copyright Office record. Name the anticipated defendant in one paragraph and attach nothing you would mind producing.
[ ] Order the deposit copy — working reproduction and certified copy — in one request, the week you open the file. The deposit, not the portfolio file, defines what was registered; records research is billed hourly and has run several weeks, so build four to six weeks into the calendar.
- Authority. 37 C.F.R. § 201.2(d)(2)(ii) (attorney request in actual or prospective litigation, with the required representations); Fed. R. Evid. 902(4); 17 U.S.C. § 410(c).
- Trap. Ordering the plain reproduction now and the certified copy at summary judgment. You pay twice and wait twice.
[ ] Compare the deposit to the work you intend to sue on and write down every discrepancy — different crop, resolution, version, later revision. Each is a scope defense you would rather find before the Rule 11 signature.
[ ] Docket the § 507(b) three-year clock against the earliest infringing act you can prove, not the most recent. A timely claim carries damages back to the start of the infringement with no separate cap. Warner Chappell Music, Inc. v. Nealy, 601 U.S. 366, 370-74 (2024).
[ ] Confirm your plaintiff is the legal or beneficial owner of the exclusive right invaded, then prove it in Phase 3. 17 U.S.C. § 501(b); Sybersound Records, Inc. v. UAV Corp., 517 F.3d 1137, 1144 (9th Cir. 2008) (exclusive licensee may sue); Saregama India Ltd. v. Mosley, 635 F.3d 1284, 1297 (11th Cir. 2011) (non-exclusive licensee may not).

Baptiste, Phase 1. Nine images sit in a group registration of published photographs, Reg. No. VA 2-2XX-XXX, effective 14 April 2021, filed within three months of first publication. Three Fog Line images were registered 6 October 2025, long after Harbormark's use began. Haulout I and II were unregistered; special handling applications went in 20 March at $800 each and certificates issued 1 April. Deposits were ordered 17 March. Doing this right the first time is Registering a Copyright and the Copyright Registration Checklist; why a working photographer registers quarterly is What Copyright Registration Actually Buys You.

Phase 2 — Preserve the evidence

[ ] Issue a written litigation hold to your own client the day you open the matter, listing custodians and systems by name — camera cards and RAW originals, cloud storage, the licensing spreadsheet, invoices, DAM records, email, texts with the defendant, and the tip that started the matter. Fed. R. Civ. P. 37(e).
- Trap. Holds addressed to general counsel and no further. Name the assistant who runs the Lightroom catalog.
[ ] Capture every infringing page the same day in three formats — full-page PDF with URL and timestamp visible, a WARC or MHTML archive, and a screen recording — and log a SHA-256 hash for each file. Pages come down within hours of a demand; a dead URL in a complaint is an embarrassment, a hashed capture is evidence.
- Authority. Fed. R. Evid. 901(b)(4); 902(13)-(14) (records generated by an electronic process, and data copied from a device, on a qualified person's certification).
[ ] Have whoever performs the captures sign a short declaration contemporaneously, describing the tool, machine, and process — not in nine months, after they leave the firm.
[ ] Download the defendant's copies and run a metadata comparison against the originals: EXIF, IPTC, XMP, embedded ICC profile, file hash, pixel dimensions, residual serial numbers. A matching hash collapses copying-in-fact into one paragraph; a missing IPTC block is the factual core of the § 1202 count in Phase 7.
[ ] Save the Internet Archive Wayback history for each infringing URL. It dates the start of the use, which is the § 412 question in Phase 4 and the § 507(b) question in Phase 10.
[ ] Preserve the offline uses: order the print piece, buy the product, photograph the signage, request the mailer. Keep the receipt and the envelope.
[ ] List every third-party system holding evidence a party cannot preserve for you and calendar a Rule 45 subpoena for the week after the Rule 26(f) conference. Aggregators, ad platforms, agencies, and print vendors run short retention windows.
[ ] Assemble the access record now, while it is cheap — analytics showing the defendant's IP range, referral logs, the message asking for the file, the trade show, the prior licensing relationship.
- Authority. Mag Jewelry Co. v. Cherokee, Inc., 496 F.3d 108, 117, 119 & n.17 (1st Cir. 2007) (a reasonable opportunity, not a bare possibility; the First Circuit will not infer copying from striking similarity alone).
[ ] Compile the client's licensing history for comparable works. It is the actual-damages case, the mediation benchmark, and the answer to "these were free stock photos."

Trap. Sending the demand before the captures are done. Everything you did not archive will be gone by the time the answer is due, and the defendant will tell the court it never used the two you cannot prove. The general pre-suit sweep is the Pre-Litigation Enforcement Checklist.

Phase 3 — Prove the chain of title

[ ] Build a one-page title chart before drafting anything: author; employment or commission status; every written transfer with date and recordation number; every exclusive license; every security interest; every § 203 termination window.
[ ] Get the executed instruments, not descriptions of them. A transfer is invalid unless in a writing signed by the owner of the rights conveyed. 17 U.S.C. § 204(a).
[ ] Search Copyright Office recordation records under 17 U.S.C. § 205 and reconcile them against the chart. A recorded conflicting transfer you did not know about is a standing problem and a Rule 11 problem.
[ ] Confirm the assignment expressly conveys accrued causes of action — and check your circuit, because the default is not uniform.
- Authority. ABKCO Music, Inc. v. Harrisongs Music, Ltd., 944 F.2d 971, 980 (2d Cir. 1991) (accrued claims stay with the assignor absent express words); but see SAPC, Inc. v. Lotus Development Corp., 921 F.2d 360, 363-64 (1st Cir. 1990) (a conveyance of all right, title, and interest carries them).
- Trap. A bare assignment of the right to sue, unaccompanied by an exclusive right, confers nothing. Silvers v. Sony Pictures Entertainment, Inc., 402 F.3d 881, 890 (9th Cir. 2005) (en banc); Righthaven LLC v. Hoehn, 716 F.3d 1166, 1169-70 (9th Cir. 2013).
[ ] For every commissioned work, verify both halves of work-for-hire: one of the nine enumerated categories in 17 U.S.C. § 101 and a signed writing. Most agency and freelance work satisfies neither. If it fails, take a present assignment and price the accrued-claims gap honestly.
[ ] Ask in writing whether anyone else contributed copyrightable expression. A joint author can license non-exclusively without consent, subject only to accounting — which turns your infringement case into a state-court accounting.
[ ] Reject the retroactive fix. A co-owner cannot grant a retroactive license extinguishing another co-owner's accrued claim, Davis v. Blige, 505 F.3d 90, 104-07 (2d Cir. 2007), and nunc pro tunc paper does not manufacture standing that did not exist at filing.
[ ] Run the ownership limitations analysis separately from the infringement one. Kwan v. Schlein, 634 F.3d 224, 229 (2d Cir. 2011); Seven Arts Filmed Entertainment Ltd. v. Content Media Corp., 733 F.3d 1251, 1254-55 (9th Cir. 2013) (an ownership claim accrues once, on plain and express repudiation; if time-barred, dependent infringement claims fall with it).
- Trap. This is the quiet case-killer in catalogue matters. A repudiation letter from 2014 can bar a 2026 infringement claim outright.

The analysis is in Who Owns the Work and Transfers, Licenses, and Termination Rights; the diligence sequence is the Copyright Ownership and Chain-of-Title Checklist. Where a model was in the loop, resolve authorship before filing — Who Owns What the Machine Made.

Phase 4 — Build the works-in-suit schedule

[ ] Build one table, one row per work: title; registration number; effective date of registration; first publication; date infringement commenced; § 412 statutory damages and fees (yes/no); uses proven; deposit matched (yes/no). This is Exhibit A and your damages model at once.
- Authority. 17 U.S.C. § 412 — no statutory damages and no fees for infringement of a published work that commenced after first publication and before the effective date of registration, unless registration was made within three months after first publication.
- Trap. The verb is "commenced." A defendant who started before your certificate issued is not exposed to statutory damages by continuing after it.
[ ] Bold every "No" row and treat those works as a separate case with separate economics. They carry actual damages and profits only — plus, if metadata was stripped, a § 1202 claim § 412 does not touch.
[ ] Run the "one work" analysis before multiplying anything by $30,000. Statutory damages are per work infringed, and all parts of a compilation constitute one work. 17 U.S.C. § 504(c)(1). Nine awards versus one is the difference between a real case and a nuisance case, so plead separate licensing history for each work.
- Authority. 37 C.F.R. § 202.4 (group registration registers each photograph separately); Sullivan v. Flora, Inc., 936 F.3d 562, 570-73 (7th Cir. 2019) (independent economic value); VHT, Inc. v. Zillow Group, Inc., 918 F.3d 723 (9th Cir. 2019); compare Bryant v. Media Right Productions, Inc., 603 F.3d 135, 140-42 (2d Cir. 2010) (albums as compilations, one award each).
[ ] Name the § 106 rights invaded for each row, use by use — reproduction, distribution, public display, public performance, derivative work. "Infringed the copyright" is not a pleading.
[ ] Write one sentence per row stating what the protectable expression is. Not the subject, not the concept, not the genre. If you cannot write it, the work does not belong on the schedule.
[ ] Delete any work you would not try. Each added work is a new § 412 analysis, a new deposit, a new authorship story, and a new registration defect waiting to be found.

Baptiste's schedule, compressed:

| # | Work | Reg. no. | Eff. reg. | First pub. | Infr. began | § 412? | Uses | |---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| | 1-9 | Coastal series (incl. Dawn, Point Judith) | VA 2-2XX-XXX (group) | 14 Apr 2021 | 3 Feb 2021 | Jun 2022 – Mar 2024 | Yes | Web; 3 also brochure and email | | 10-12 | Fog Line I-III | VA 2-4XX-XXX | 6 Oct 2025 | 11 May 2022 | Sep 2023 | No | Web only | | 13-14 | Haulout I, II | VA 2-5XX-XXX | 1 Apr 2026 | 19 Jul 2023 | Jan 2024 | No | Web; Tidebank re-license ×31 |

Phase 5 — Notice, demand, and the takedown lever

[ ] Decide on the record whether to write before you file, and put the reason in the file memo. A demand unambiguously asserting infringement can create a controversy supporting a declaratory judgment action in the recipient's home district. MedImmune, Inc. v. Genentech, Inc., 549 U.S. 118, 127 (2007).
- Trap. Writing, waiting three weeks, filing without checking PACER. Check the docket the morning you file.
[ ] If you write, include the four things a copyright demand needs that a trademark demand does not: registration numbers and effective dates; deposit-matched identification of each work; the specific § 106 rights invaded; and the § 412 timing where it favors you. Structure is in Sending an Effective Cease-and-Desist Letter; the skeleton is the Trademark Cease-and-Desist Letter — Template.
[ ] Do not overclaim on works where § 412 bars statutory damages, and do not call unprotectable material protected. Defense counsel reads the overclaim first, and will answer from Responding to a Cease-and-Desist Letter.
[ ] Quote the client's actual rate card and attach three executed licenses at those rates. An unsupported number reads as an opening bid; a supported one reads as a damages model.
[ ] For online uses, send a § 512(c)(3) notice to the provider's designated agent in the Copyright Office electronic directory — after running the fair use analysis.
- Authority. 17 U.S.C. § 512(c)(3); Lenz v. Universal Music Corp., 815 F.3d 1145, 1151-54 (9th Cir. 2016) (good faith belief must include consideration of fair use); § 512(f) (misrepresentation liability).
- Score the defense with the Fair Use Risk Assessment Checklist and Running a Fair Use Analysis; send it using the DMCA Takedown Notice Checklist and Sending and Fighting a DMCA Takedown.
[ ] Log what the provider does with the notice, and how fast. That log is the repeat-infringer record if you later name the platform. See The DMCA Safe Harbor.
[ ] Tell the client in writing whether the Copyright Claims Board is the rational forum, and why you are recommending against it if you are. For one clean registration and a $4,000 claim it is the only economically rational forum in the country.
- Authority. 17 U.S.C. §§ 1501-1511; § 1504(e)(1) (total recovery capped at $30,000 exclusive of fees and costs; statutory damages capped at $15,000 per timely-registered work and $7,500 per untimely one, with a $15,000 proceeding cap); § 1506(i) (opt out within sixty days). Filing fee $100 in two installments. Matter economics are in The Solo and Small Firm IP Practice Toolkit.

Baptiste, Phase 5. Demand to Harbormark's general counsel on 3 April 2026: nine timely-registered works identified by number and effective date, the § 1202 metadata claim flagged separately, $1,800 web and $3,500 print rates supported by three executed licenses, and no statutory damages asserted on the five works § 412 bars. A § 512(c)(3) notice went to Tidebank the same day. Harbormark's counsel answered 24 April with $22,000 and no forward license. Baptiste wanted the rule, so the answer was no.

Phase 6 — Choose the forum and plead venue

[ ] Confirm exclusive federal jurisdiction and drop any thought of state court. 28 U.S.C. § 1338(a). A state-law claim preempted by § 301 is removable in state-law clothing anyway. There is no administrative alternative on the trademark model — the contrast is Federal Court vs. TTAB.
[ ] Plead 28 U.S.C. § 1400(a) as your primary venue basis and § 1391(b) in the alternative. Section 1400(a) places venue wherever "the defendant or his agent resides or may be found," read as coextensive with personal jurisdiction. Brayton Purcell LLP v. Recordon & Recordon, 606 F.3d 1124, 1126 (9th Cir. 2010); Milwaukee Concrete Studios, Ltd. v. Fjeld Manufacturing Co., 8 F.3d 441, 445 (7th Cir. 1993). It is broader than the general venue statute and one of the few structural advantages a copyright plaintiff has.
[ ] Pick the circuit on the filtration rules, not on habit. Where the extrinsic test or abstraction-filtration-comparison governs, a defendant has a mapped route to summary judgment; elsewhere a plaintiff who survives the pleadings holds settlement value. The circuit table is in the companion article. This matters most when the works are merely similar; in an exact-copying case it barely matters.
[ ] Pull current Federal Court Management Statistics for candidate districts rather than relying on reputation. Median time to trial varies by more than a year.
[ ] Check every prior agreement for a forum selection clause. If one governs, Atlantic Marine Construction Co. v. U.S. District Court, 571 U.S. 49, 62-63 (2013), makes escape very hard.
[ ] Pre-write the § 1404(a) transfer opposition before you file, and plead the facts it needs: where the works were created, where the plaintiff and her witnesses are, where the infringing materials circulated.
- Trap. Naming a corporate officer purely to defeat transfer. Opposing counsel will make it the centerpiece of the § 505 fee motion, and Kirtsaeng invites the court to weigh motivation.
[ ] Check the local rules for a mandatory related-case notice and anything else the district demands with a new action.

Baptiste, Phase 6. Harbormark runs two Rhode Island properties, solicits Rhode Island guests, and distributed the brochure in state, so venue lies in D.R.I. under § 1400(a). The First Circuit filters merger and scènes à faire as a matter of law, Harney v. Sony Pictures Television, Inc., 704 F.3d 173, 179 (1st Cir. 2013), but gives a defendant no extrinsic-test shortcut to summary judgment; the elements are the two-part Feist formulation restated in Johnson v. Gordon, 409 F.3d 12, 17-18 (1st Cir. 2005).

Phase 7 — Draft the complaint

[ ] Draft under these headings, in this order: caption; preliminary statement; jurisdiction; venue; parties; facts; counts; prayer; jury demand; signature block. One set of circumstances per numbered paragraph. Fed. R. Civ. P. 10(b).
[ ] Write the preliminary statement as an opening statement, not a summary — what it took to make the work, how the defendant got it, what it did, what it cost the client, in under a page.
[ ] Order the facts: authorship and creation; how the plaintiff came to own it; registration by number and effective date; access; the defendant's conduct use by use with dates; the similarities in protectable terms only; the § 106 rights invaded; willfulness facts; harm, including irreparable harm.
- Trap. Describing similarity at the level of concept ("a working harbor at dawn") invites a motion in which the court compares the works itself and dismisses. Peter F. Gaito Architecture, LLC v. Simone Development Corp., 602 F.3d 57, 63-64 (2d Cir. 2010).
[ ] Attach the works, the certificates, and depictions of the infringing use, and cite them by exhibit letter. Fed. R. Civ. P. 10(c) makes them part of the pleading for all purposes — decisive in an exact-copying case, dangerous in a thin one.
[ ] Plead a separate count per theory per defendant: direct (17 U.S.C. §§ 106, 501(a)); contributory; inducement; vicarious. Contributory requires knowledge of or willful blindness to the infringement plus material contribution; vicarious requires the right and ability to supervise plus a direct financial interest, and no knowledge. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd., 545 U.S. 913, 930, 936-37 (2005); Fonovisa, Inc. v. Cherry Auction, Inc., 76 F.3d 259, 262 (9th Cir. 1996); EMI Christian Music Group, Inc. v. MP3tunes, LLC, 844 F.3d 79, 99-100 (2d Cir. 2016) (officer liability).
[ ] Plead the § 1202 copyright management information count wherever credits or metadata were removed, and plead the double scienter specifically. Statutory damages under § 1203(c)(3)(B) run $2,500 to $25,000 per violation and are not gated by § 412 — often the only money on the untimely-registered works.
- Authority. 17 U.S.C. § 1202(b); Murphy v. Millennium Radio Group LLC, 650 F.3d 295, 300-05 (3d Cir. 2011) (a gutter credit is CMI); Mango v. BuzzFeed, Inc., 970 F.3d 167, 171-73 (2d Cir. 2020); Stevens v. CoreLogic, Inc., 899 F.3d 666, 673-75 (9th Cir. 2018) (generic concealment allegations fail).
[ ] Do not plead reverse passing off under the Lanham Act for uncredited copying of creative content. Dastar Corp. v. Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp., 539 U.S. 23, 37 (2003). Plead § 43(a) only for a genuine source-identifying use or a false statement about the product itself — the test is in Trademark Infringement: Proving Likelihood of Confusion, the procedure in the Trademark Litigation Toolkit.
[ ] Run every state-law count through the § 301 extra-element test first. Unjust enrichment and conversion of intangible copies are ordinarily preempted; breach of contract, trade secret misappropriation, and source-based deception ordinarily are not. Publicity claims turn on whether the target is a fixed recording — Your Face Is Not Public Domain.
[ ] Where a departing employee is the vector, plead the DTSA claim alongside the copyright count. 18 U.S.C. § 1836; Trade Secrets and the DTSA and the Trade Secret Protection and Departure Checklist.
[ ] Demand a jury in the caption and in a closing paragraph, and check the local rule on placement. Fed. R. Civ. P. 38(b); Feltner v. Columbia Pictures Television, Inc., 523 U.S. 340, 353 (1998) (Seventh Amendment right to a jury on the amount of statutory damages). An injunction-only complaint is a bench trial.
[ ] Plead on information and belief only where facts are peculiarly within the defendant's control, and only with a good-faith basis. Keiler v. Harlequin Enterprises Ltd., 751 F.3d 64, 70-71 (2d Cir. 2014); Fed. R. Civ. P. 11(b).
[ ] Re-read the works-in-suit schedule against the complaint before signing. The recurring Rule 11 problem here is a schedule listing unregistered works, registrations that do not cover the version sued on, or a plaintiff who is not the owner.

Phase 8 — Plead and preserve the remedies

[ ] Plead injunctive relief under 17 U.S.C. § 502 with an evidentiary theory of irreparable harm, not a presumption.
- Authority. eBay Inc. v. MercExchange, L.L.C., 547 U.S. 388, 391 (2006); Salinger v. Colting, 607 F.3d 68, 79-82 (2d Cir. 2010); Perfect 10, Inc. v. Google, Inc., 653 F.3d 976, 979-81 (9th Cir. 2011). For preliminary relief the factors are Winter v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 555 U.S. 7, 20 (2008).
- Trap. A proposed injunction broad enough to sweep in fair uses. Draft narrowly; Fed. R. Civ. P. 65(d)(2) already binds officers, agents, employees, attorneys, and persons in active concert with notice. Declarations, the Rule 65(c) bond, and notice mechanics transfer from Moving for a TRO or Preliminary Injunction and the Preliminary Injunction Motion Checklist.
[ ] Ask for impoundment and destruction wherever physical inventory exists. 17 U.S.C. § 503(a)-(b). Ask even if you never move — it prices the inventory into the settlement.
[ ] Plead actual damages and profits under § 504(b) and build the two proofs separately. You prove gross revenue reasonably related to the infringement; the defendant must prove deductible expenses and the profit attributable to other factors. That allocation is the most valuable procedural asset a copyright plaintiff owns, and friendlier than the Lanham Act version in Proving Trademark Damages and Disgorging Profits and the Trademark Monetary Recovery Checklist.
- Authority. On Davis v. The Gap, Inc., 246 F.3d 152, 165-72 (2d Cir. 2001) (hypothetical license); Polar Bear Productions, Inc. v. Timex Corp., 384 F.3d 700, 711-15 (9th Cir. 2004); Bouchat v. Baltimore Ravens Football Club, Inc., 346 F.3d 514, 522-23 (4th Cir. 2003) (more than speculation on causation); Mackie v. Rieser, 296 F.3d 909, 915 (9th Cir. 2002) (indirect profits).
[ ] Plead statutory damages in the alternative under § 504(c) — $750 to $30,000 per work, up to $150,000 for willfulness, as low as $200 for innocence — and do not elect yet. Election may be made any time before final judgment. Twin Peaks Productions, Inc. v. Publications International, Ltd., 996 F.2d 1366, 1380 (2d Cir. 1993).
[ ] Plead the willfulness facts that move a per-work award from $5,000 to $50,000: credit removal, notice ignored, an internal clearance policy violated, prior incidents, continued use after suit.
[ ] Plead fees and costs under § 505 only on works where § 412 permits them, and price the risk that they run the other way. Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 579 U.S. 197, 202, 209 (2016); Fogerty v. Fantasy, Inc., 510 U.S. 517, 534 n.19 (1994).
- Trap. "Full costs" means the categories in 28 U.S.C. §§ 1821 and 1920 and nothing more. Rimini Street, Inc. v. Oracle USA, Inc., 586 U.S. 334, 337-38 (2019). Your e-discovery invoice is not a cost.
[ ] Run the election arithmetic on a spreadsheet before mediation, not at the pretrial conference. Compare provable actual damages plus attributable profits against realistic per-work awards times the number of § 412-eligible works. When the two are close, elect statutory: it removes the apportionment fight, removes the defendant's damages expert, and puts the number to a jury.

Baptiste, Phase 8. Hypothetical-license damages across fourteen images over four years come to roughly $120,000, and Harbormark's profits are functionally unapportionable — nobody books a hotel room because of a photograph, and a court will say so. Statutory damages on the nine timely-registered works, with real willfulness evidence, plausibly land at $10,000 to $25,000 each, plus § 1202 exposure across all fourteen at $2,500 to $25,000 per violation. Elect statutory on the nine, prove actual damages on the other five, and let § 1202 carry the works § 412 stripped.

Phase 9 — File, serve, and manage the case

[ ] Assemble the filing package: complaint with exhibits; civil cover sheet (Form JS 44 or the local variant); summons (Form AO 440) for each defendant; Fed. R. Civ. P. 7.1 disclosure statement for every non-governmental corporate party, including LLCs and partnerships in most districts; any local related-case notice; and the filing fee, currently $405 in most districts.
[ ] File Form AO 121, "Report on the Filing or Determination of an Action or Appeal Regarding a Copyright," with the complaint unless the local rule assigns it to the clerk. 17 U.S.C. § 508(a) requires notice to the Register within one month of filing. It is one page, and forgetting it produces a clerk's notice on day two.
[ ] Redact before filing. Fed. R. Civ. P. 5.2 — Social Security and taxpayer numbers, minors' names, birthdates, financial account numbers. Copyright exhibits are full of them: invoices, contributor forms, licenses.
[ ] Choose formal service or Rule 4(d) waiver deliberately. Formal service under Rule 4(h) puts the response at twenty-one days; a waiver gives sixty days from the date the request was sent (ninety abroad) but shifts service costs onto a defendant refusing without good cause.
- Trap. Waiving service while racing a limitations period or planning a preliminary injunction motion. It costs five weeks you do not have.
[ ] Start Hague Service Convention transmission the week you file for any foreign defendant. Rule 4(m)'s ninety-day limit does not apply, and it routinely runs four to twelve months.
[ ] Calendar Rule 4(m), Rule 12(a), Rule 16(b)(2), Rule 26(f), and Rule 26(a)(1) the day the complaint is filed.
[ ] Use the Rule 26(f) conference for three things that otherwise cost months: an ESI protocol requiring production of native image or code files with metadata intact; a protective order with a highly-confidential or source-code tier; and a schedule putting expert disclosure after substantial similarity summary judgment briefing.
[ ] Serve the Phase 2 third-party subpoenas in the first week discovery opens. Fed. R. Civ. P. 45. For anonymous uploaders, a Rule 26(d)(1) motion for expedited discovery or a § 512(h) subpoena from the clerk, then amend under Rule 15 with an eye to relation back.
[ ] Line up experts early and hold them to Rule 702 as amended effective 1 December 2023 — admissibility by a preponderance, and a reliable application of the methodology to the facts. Transferable discipline is in Commissioning and Attacking a Trademark Survey and the Evidence and Expert Witness Toolkit.
[ ] If it settles, decide whether the court keeps jurisdiction. A stipulated dismissal under Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(ii) takes the court's jurisdiction with it unless the order expressly retains jurisdiction or incorporates the settlement terms. Kokkonen v. Guardian Life Insurance Co. of America, 511 U.S. 375, 381-82 (1994). One sentence.

Phase 10 — Neutralize the early defenses

[ ] Answer the § 411(b) registration-invalidity attack inside the complaint, by pleading the registration facts accurately and completely. 17 U.S.C. § 411(b); Unicolors, Inc. v. H&M Hennes & Mauritz, L.P., 595 U.S. 178, 185-91 (2022) ("knowledge" reaches mistakes of law as well as fact).
- Trap. Once a defendant clears the threshold, § 411(b)(2) requires referral to the Register — a delay lever worth months. Kill it early on scienter.
[ ] Expect the Rule 12(b)(6) comparison motion in any similarity case and pre-build the filtration order into your opposition: identify protectable expression first, then compare. Gaito, 602 F.3d at 63-65.
[ ] Price the fair use defense honestly before the first mediation. Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. v. Goldsmith, 598 U.S. 508, 525-35 (2023), asks whether the use has a genuinely different purpose. See Fair Use After Warhol.
[ ] Diagnose any license defense as condition or covenant. Breach of a condition means the use was unlicensed and infringing; breach of a covenant leaves a contract claim and no copyright claim.
[ ] Assume independent creation will be pleaded and make the probative-similarity record now. Shared errors, shared arbitrary choices, and identical file hashes do work that access alone cannot.
[ ] Meet the § 507(b) accrual defense with the discovery rule, and preserve the argument on both sides. Petrella v. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc., 572 U.S. 663, 671, 677-80 (2014) (separate accrual; laches bars no damages inside the window); Warner Chappell, 601 U.S. at 370-74. Three Justices have said the discovery rule probably should not exist. Plead it; do not build a client's business plan on it.
[ ] Attack a platform defendant's § 512 safe harbor at the threshold, not on the merits: designated-agent registration and three-year renewal under 37 C.F.R. § 201.38; a repeat-infringer policy as implemented, BMG Rights Management (US) LLC v. Cox Communications, Inc., 881 F.3d 293, 303-06 (4th Cir. 2018); then item-specific knowledge and red-flag awareness, Viacom International, Inc. v. YouTube, Inc., 676 F.3d 19, 30-38 (2d Cir. 2012).
[ ] Screen for the equitable defenses that actually land — estoppel, copyright misuse, unclean hands, abandonment — and for the statutory limits that are not defenses but limits on the right: 17 U.S.C. § 107, § 109(a), § 110, § 117.
[ ] Take the § 505 fee threat seriously and audit your own complaint against it. A count barred by § 412, or a Dastar-barred Lanham Act claim, is exactly what gets quoted back at you under Kirtsaeng.

Common Mistakes

Filing on a pending application. Dismissal is without prejudice; the calendar is not. Pay the $800 and wait for the certificate.
Describing the work from the portfolio file instead of the deposit. The deposit is the copyright's outer wall, and a mismatch is a free scope defense.
Treating registration as a yes/no question rather than a per-work question. Section 412 is decided row by row, and so is the value of the case.
Multiplying works by $150,000 in the demand letter. It advertises that you ran neither the § 412 analysis nor the "one work" analysis, and it turns a paying defendant into a fighting one.
Pleading similarity at the level of concept. That is an invitation to a Rule 12 comparison motion.
Adding a Lanham Act reverse-passing-off count for uncredited copying. Dastar disposes of it, and the dismissal colors everything after it.
Skipping the § 1202 count because the case "is really about the photographs." On untimely-registered works it is frequently the only statutory money available.
Sending the demand before the captures, the hold, and the metadata comparison are done. The pages come down within a day.
Letting an assignment postdate the infringement without accrued-claims language — and assuming your circuit's default: compare ABKCO, 944 F.2d at 980, with SAPC, 921 F.2d at 363-64.
Never mentioning the Copyright Claims Board. For small claims it is the only rational forum, and the omission surfaces when the first invoice does.

Deadlines at a Glance

| Clock | Length | Runs from | Authority | |---|---|---|---| | Infringement claim | 3 years | Accrual (discovery rule in every circuit to decide) | § 507(b); Warner Chappell, 601 U.S. 366 | | § 412 window, published work | 3 months | First publication | 17 U.S.C. § 412 | | Preregistration → registration | Earlier of 3 months after publication or 1 month after learning of the infringement | Publication / knowledge | § 408(f); 37 C.F.R. § 202.16 | | Live broadcast: notice to infringer | Not less than 48 hours before fixation | Planned transmission | § 411(c)(1) | | Live broadcast: registration | 3 months | First transmission | § 411(c)(2) | | Clerk's report to the Register | 1 month | Filing | § 508(a); Form AO 121 | | Service of summons and complaint | 90 days (no limit for foreign service) | Filing | Fed. R. Civ. P. 4(m) | | Response after formal service | 21 days | Service | Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(a)(1)(A)(i) | | Response after waiver | 60 days (90 if abroad) | Date the request was sent | Fed. R. Civ. P. 4(d)(3), 12(a)(1)(A)(ii) | | Jury demand | 14 days | Service of the last pleading on the issue | Fed. R. Civ. P. 38(b) | | Amend once as of right | 21 days | Responsive pleading or Rule 12(b), (e), (f) motion | Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(a)(1)(B) | | Scheduling order | Earlier of 90 days after any defendant is served or 60 days after any appears | Service / appearance | Fed. R. Civ. P. 16(b)(2) | | Initial disclosures | 14 days | Rule 26(f) conference | Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(a)(1)(C) | | TRO without notice | 14 days, extendable once | Entry | Fed. R. Civ. P. 65(b)(2) | | CCB opt-out | 60 days | Service of the claim | 17 U.S.C. § 1506(i) | | Election of statutory damages | Any time before final judgment | — | § 504(c)(1) | | Fee motion | 14 days | Entry of judgment | Fed. R. Civ. P. 54(d)(2)(B) | | Notice of appeal | 30 days | Entry of judgment | Fed. R. App. P. 4(a)(1)(A) |