Helped Clients Recover Over $25 Billion. Since 1979.
Helped Clients Recover Over $25 Billion. Since 1979.
One filing decision made early controls whether an infringer faces a few thousand dollars in provable losses or up to $150,000 per work plus your legal fees, and decides whether you can elect statutory damages without proving a loss or have to prove every dollar of harm yourself. David Lizerbram leads copyright work at The Schenk Law Firm and helps you get that decision right and take action when someone replicates your work.
A copyright attorney does four things: registers your work on the right timeline, enforces it when it is copied, removes infringing material online, and drafts the agreements that decide who owns what. Copyright attaches automatically under 17 U.S.C. Section 102(a), so the lawyer's job is not creating the right. It is making the right enforceable.
Copyright practice is federal, so our copyright law firm represents clients nationwide. San Diego businesses searching for a copyright lawyer near me can meet with us locally.
Two assets cause the most confusion. Our guides explain how to copyright a logo and how to copyright a business name, which are not the same problem and do not use the same tool.
Register before infringement begins, or within three months of first publication, and statutory damages and attorney's fees stay available. Miss that window under 17 U.S.C. Section 412 and you are limited to actual damages and profits, which are often harder to prove than they are worth. This one rule is why a copyright registration attorney files early, not at the moment of a dispute.
Registration is also the ticket to court. In Fourth Estate Public Benefit Corp. v. Wall-Street.com, LLC, 586 U.S. 296 (2019), the Supreme Court held that you cannot sue until the Copyright Office has actually registered the work, not merely received your application.
The three-month window may still be open. Request a consultation or call (858) 424-4444 before it closes.
Enforcement runs in stages, and most often, matters end at the second. As your copyright infringement attorney, we approach each stage separately, so you stop the moment the outcome you want is achieved.
As your copyright infringement attorney, we confirm ownership and registration status, document the use with dated captures, and evaluate fair use exposure honestly before you commit to a position. Your Section 412 timing gets checked here, because it changes the leverage in every conversation that follows.
The letter from your copyright infringement lawyer identifies the work, the registration, and the remedies. If registration was timely, it states the statutory damages exposure, and that figure is usually what produces a fast resolution: removal, a paid license, or a settlement.
The remedies federal copyright law makes available, and the statute behind each.
| Recovery type | What it covers | Statute |
|---|---|---|
| Statutory damages | A per-work award set by the court, which you elect instead of proving actual loss | 17 U.S.C. 504(c)(1) |
| Willful infringement | The court may increase the statutory award where the infringement is found willful | 17 U.S.C. 504(c)(2) |
| Actual damages and profits | Your losses plus the infringer's profits from the infringement | 17 U.S.C. 504(b) |
| Attorney's fees and costs | Available at the court's discretion to the prevailing party | 17 U.S.C. 505 |
| Timing gate | Statutory damages and fees require registration before infringement, or within three months of publication | 17 U.S.C. 412 |
Past results do not guarantee future outcomes, and no recovery is promised in any matter.
A DMCA takedown notice is a written request under 17 U.S.C. Section 512(c)(3) asking a platform to remove infringing material. It is the fastest online remedy, often resolving in days, and it does not require a registration certificate.
The statute requires specific elements, and notices that omit one get rejected. Notices that overreach expose the sender to liability under Section 512(f), so the assessment before sending matters as much as the sending.
Paying for creative work does not transfer copyright. Under 17 U.S.C. Section 101, contractor work is a work made for hire only in nine specific categories and only with a signed written agreement. Logos, software, and websites usually fall outside them.
For most commissioned work, the reliable route is a signed copyright assignment agreement under Section 204(a). We draft these alongside the contract drafting and negotiation work our business clients already rely on.
What this means for you. If you paid a contractor for a logo, an app, or a website and never signed an assignment, the contractor may still own it. That gap surfaces during funding rounds and acquisitions, and it is cheap to fix now.
David Lizerbram leads trademark and intellectual property work at The Schenk Law Firm, with more than 800 trademark applications managed before the USPTO. Clients get a copyright law firm where registration strategy and enforcement sit with the same attorney.
The practice sits within Business Advisory & Transactions, so your IP strategy is built by a practice that already knows your contracts and structure.
Whether you need work registered before it is published or you found it on someone else's site this morning, the first conversation costs nothing. Clients searching for a copyright attorney near me in San Diego can meet with us by scheduling a consultation or calling us at (858) 424-4444.
800+ USPTO Applications | San Diego Based, Nationwide Practice
No. Copyright attaches automatically under 17 U.S.C. Section 102(a) when an original work is fixed in tangible form. Registration is what makes it enforceable. You cannot sue without it, and a copyright registration attorney files early because timely registration under Section 412 is what preserves statutory damages and fees.
No. Under Fourth Estate (2019), the Copyright Office must actually register the work before you file suit. Once it issues, you can recover for infringement that happened before registration, and special handling can shorten the wait when a filing is urgent.
A timely registered work supports statutory damages, a per-work award the court sets within the range in 17 U.S.C. Section 504(c), with a higher ceiling where the infringement is willful, plus fees at the court's discretion under Section 505. Without timely registration, a copyright infringement lawyer is limited to your actual damages and the infringer's profits.
Three years under 17 U.S.C. Section 507(b), measured from when each claim accrued. Evidence degrades, and platforms purge records long before then, so do not treat three years as breathing room.
A DMCA takedown notice is a written request under 17 U.S.C. Section 512(c)(3) asking a service provider to remove infringing material. It requires identification of the work and the infringing material, your contact details, a good faith statement, and a statement under penalty of perjury.
Often not. Contractor work is a work made for hire only in nine statutory categories with a signed written agreement, and most commissioned work falls outside them. Without a signed copyright assignment agreement, the contractor may own the copyright while you hold only an implied license. A copyright attorney can close that gap with a short signed transfer.
Copyright protects creative expression such as text, images, code, and video. Trademark protects the names and logos that identify where a product came from, and a logo can carry both. Copyright does not protect names or short phrases at all, which is why founders asking should I trademark my business name are asking the right question. Our guide to trademark vs copyright vs patent covers which protection fits which asset.
Cost tracks the work: registration at the low end, demand letters above it, contested matters at the top. We price each stage before we begin, and your first conversation with a copyright lawyer at our firm costs nothing.
If your brand name or logo also needs protection as a brand identifier, see our Trademark Attorney page.
Attorney Advertising. The information on this page is for general informational purposes only and is not legal advice. Contacting The Schenk Law Firm or reading this page does not create an attorney-client relationship. Past results do not guarantee future outcomes.