ALASKA STOCK, LLC vs HOUGHTON MIFFLIN HARCOURT PUBLISHING COMPANY; R.R. DONNELLEY & SONS COMPANY

On March 18, 2014, in the Alaska Stock, LLC v. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Co. case, the Ninth Circuit reversed the United States District Court for the District of Alaska, which held that a copyright registration in a collective work must list the authors and titles of the works in a collective work in order for the constituent works of the collective work to be registered.

The Ninth Circuit, deferring to longstanding Copyright Office practice, as well as other courts and respected treatises, held that, in the copyright realm, the registration of a collective work results in the registration of all of the underlying works even if the authors and titles of the underlying works are not listed on the application documents; provided, the copyright claimant owns the rights in the underlying works, and is not merely a licensee.

If, however, the copyright claimant is not the owner of the constituent works, but is merely a licensee, a registration of the collective work will not register the underlying constituent works.

This ruling is significant for publishers of content that derives from a variety of sources, who should consider their copyright registration practices in light of this opinion.