STATUTORY DAMAGES
DEFINITION
Statutory damages are a fixed range of compensation set by law that a copyright owner can claim for infringement without proving actual financial loss, available in the US only for works registered before the infringement or within statutory time limits.
WHAT IT MEANS IN PRACTICE
Under US copyright law, registered works can qualify for statutory damages ranging up to 150,000 dollars per work for wilful infringement, a figure set by statute rather than calculated from actual harm. This is one of the strongest practical reasons to register copyright promptly in the US.
The EU has no direct equivalent to US-style statutory damages. EU member states generally require claimants to prove actual damages or account for the infringer's profits, though some national laws allow damages calculated as if a licence fee had been paid.
This is a major transatlantic divergence: an American photographer who registers early has access to a powerful deterrent that a European photographer, even with the identical infringement, simply does not have under their own national law.
AN EXAMPLE
Two photographers, one in New York and one in Lyon, both have identical images stolen and used commercially without permission. The New York photographer registered the copyright before infringement and can claim statutory damages up to the legal maximum without proving lost sales. The Lyon photographer must prove actual financial loss under French law.
WATCH OUT
US statutory damages are only available if the work was registered before the infringement began, or within the statutory grace period after publication.
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