If someone uses your copyrighted work without permission, federal law gives you a layered set of copyright infringement remedies: money for what you lost and what the infringer earned, statutory damages of $750 to $150,000 per work when you qualify, court orders stopping the activity, seizure and destruction of infringing copies, attorney’s fees, a streamlined small-claims option through the Copyright Claims Board, DMCA takedowns for online material, and in serious willful cases, federal criminal prosecution. Which of these you can actually pursue, and how much you can recover, turns largely on one practical step most creators overlook: registering the work with the U.S. Copyright Office, and doing it early enough.
Why Registration Timing Decides What You Can Recover
You generally cannot file a copyright infringement lawsuit in federal court for a U.S. work until the Copyright Office has acted on your application. The Supreme Court confirmed in 2019 that submitting the application is not enough; the Office must have granted or formally refused registration.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 17 USC 411 – Registration and Civil Infringement Actions Processing can take months, so waiting until infringement is already happening puts you behind.
Timing also controls the two most valuable remedies. Statutory damages and attorney’s fees are available only if the work was registered before the infringement began, or, for published works, within three months of first publication.2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 17 USC 412 – Registration as Prerequisite to Certain Remedies for Infringement For unpublished works, there is no grace period at all; registration must predate the infringement. Miss these windows and you can still sue, but you are limited to proving actual losses, which is harder and more expensive. A basic online registration costs $45 for a single-author work or $65 for the standard application.3U.S. Copyright Office. Fees Measured against litigation costs, that is cheap insurance.
Money Damages: Actual Losses and the Infringer’s Profits
The baseline monetary remedy covers the financial harm the infringement caused you, plus any profits the infringer earned from the unauthorized use that are not already reflected in your actual damages.4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 17 USC 504 – Remedies for Infringement Damages and Profits Actual damages typically mean lost sales, lost licensing fees, or the drop in the work’s market value.
The profits piece has a burden-shifting rule that favors the copyright owner. You only need to show the infringer’s gross revenue tied to the infringing activity. The infringer then has to prove which expenses should be deducted and which portion of that revenue came from factors other than your copyrighted work.4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 17 USC 504 – Remedies for Infringement Damages and Profits If they cannot cleanly separate out those non-infringing contributions, the full profit figure stands.
Statutory Damages When Actual Losses Are Hard to Prove
When actual losses are difficult to prove or too small to justify the effort, a copyright owner with a timely registration can elect statutory damages instead. It is an either/or choice: statutory damages or actual damages plus profits, never both. You can make the election any time before final judgment.5Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 17 USC 504 – Remedies for Infringement Damages and Profits
The standard range is $750 to $30,000 per work infringed, with the judge setting the exact amount. The range shifts sharply with the infringer’s state of mind. If you prove the infringer knew the conduct was illegal and did it anyway, the court can award up to $150,000 per work for willful infringement. If the infringer proves they had no reason to believe their conduct violated your copyright, the court can drop the award to as low as $200 per work.
Statutory damages are calculated per work, which matters when the material is a compilation. All parts of a compilation or derivative work count as a single work for this purpose.6Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 17 USC 504 – Remedies for Infringement Damages and Profits A twelve-track album may be treated as one work rather than twelve. If the individual tracks were separately registered, they may each qualify on their own, which can change the arithmetic dramatically.
Court Orders to Stop the Infringement
Money does not always solve the problem. If someone is actively selling counterfeit copies or streaming your content without permission, you need the activity to stop. Federal courts can issue temporary and permanent injunctions to prevent or restrain copyright infringement, enforceable nationwide.7Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 17 USC 502 – Remedies for Infringement Injunctions
An injunction is not automatic. The Supreme Court held in eBay v. MercExchange that the copyright owner must show irreparable injury that money alone cannot fix, that monetary damages are inadequate, that the balance of hardships favors an injunction, and that the order would not harm the public interest.8Justia. eBay Inc v MercExchange LLC, 547 US 388 (2006) An owner who waited years to complain may struggle to show the harm is truly irreparable.
A preliminary injunction can halt infringing activity while the case is still being litigated. A permanent injunction, issued after a final ruling, can bar the activity indefinitely. Violating either exposes the defendant to contempt of court, with separate fines or detention until they comply.
Seizure and Destruction of Infringing Copies
While a lawsuit is pending, a court can order the seizure of all copies claimed to infringe, plus the equipment used to make them.9Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 17 USC 503 – Remedies for Infringement Impounding and Disposition of Infringing Articles That reaches physical inventory, production molds, master recordings, digital storage, and anything else needed to reproduce the material. Impoundment keeps the infringer from flooding the market with more copies while the case plays out.
After a final judgment, the court can order those materials permanently destroyed or otherwise disposed of reasonably, including transferring them to the copyright owner. This matters most in cases involving physical counterfeiting operations where the infringer has invested in dedicated production infrastructure.
Attorney’s Fees and Litigation Costs
Copyright litigation is expensive, and the possibility of recovering fees often decides whether a case is worth filing. The court has discretion to award reasonable attorney’s fees and full costs to the prevailing party.10Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 17 USC 505 – Remedies for Infringement Costs and Attorneys Fees The same registration timing rules that govern statutory damages apply here: registration must come before the infringement started, or within three months of first publication for published works.
In deciding whether to shift fees, courts weigh the frivolousness of the losing party’s position, their motivation, the objective reasonableness of their legal and factual arguments, and the goals of compensation and deterrence.11Justia. Fogerty v Fantasy Inc, 510 US 517 (1994) Prevailing defendants get the same consideration as prevailing plaintiffs. A copyright owner who brings a frivolous claim can end up paying the other side’s bills. Without timely registration, even a winning plaintiff absorbs their own legal costs, which can easily outstrip the damages recovered.
DMCA Takedowns for Online Infringement
Not every dispute needs a lawsuit. When infringing material appears online, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act lets a copyright owner send a takedown notice directly to the hosting platform. Online service providers that comply with the notice-and-takedown system receive a safe harbor from liability for their users’ infringement, which gives them a strong incentive to act quickly on valid notices.12Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 17 USC 512 – Limitations on Liability Relating to Material Online
A valid notice needs the copyright owner’s signature, identification of the copyrighted work, enough detail to locate the infringing material, your contact information, a good-faith statement that the use is unauthorized, and a statement under penalty of perjury that the notice is accurate and you are authorized to send it. The perjury language is not decorative. Filing a false notice can expose you to liability, and the person whose content was removed can file a counter-notification. If you do not file a lawsuit within 10 to 14 business days after receiving the counter-notification, the service provider restores the content. Takedowns remove material; they do not generate damages or compensation.
The Copyright Claims Board for Smaller Disputes
Federal litigation costs enough to make small-dollar copyright claims economically pointless. The Copyright Claims Board, established in 2022 inside the Copyright Office, offers a streamlined alternative for disputes capped at $30,000 in total damages.13Copyright Claims Board. Frequently Asked Questions Statutory damages in CCB proceedings are capped at $15,000 per work, and the whole process runs online without requiring a lawyer.14Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 17 USC 1504 – Permissible Remedies
Participation is voluntary for the respondent. After being served, they have 60 days to opt out, no explanation required. Opt-out dismisses the claim, leaving federal court as the only remaining option.15Copyright Claims Board. Opting Out If the respondent does nothing in that window, the proceeding becomes active. CCB decisions are binding with limited appeal rights, trading some procedural protections for speed and accessibility. One important limit: the Board cannot issue injunctions. If you need the activity stopped rather than compensated, federal court is still the only path.
Criminal Penalties for Willful Infringement
Most copyright infringement is a civil matter between private parties. Criminal prosecution is reserved for willful infringement that meets specific thresholds, and only federal prosecutors decide whether charges get filed. Federal law defines three categories: willful infringement for financial profit or commercial advantage; reproducing or distributing copies with a total retail value over $1,000 within a 180-day period, regardless of profit motive; and making a work intended for commercial release available on a public computer network before its official distribution.16Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 17 USC 506 – Criminal Offenses
Prison sentences scale with the offense. Infringement for commercial advantage involving at least 10 copies with a retail value over $2,500 carries up to five years for a first offense and up to ten for a repeat.17Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 2319 – Criminal Infringement of a Copyright Large-scale reproduction meeting the same copy-and-value thresholds carries up to three years, or six for a second offense. Pre-release distribution carries up to three years, rising to five if done for commercial gain.
How Long You Have to Sue, and When Fair Use Blocks the Claim
A copyright owner has three years from when the claim accrued to file a civil lawsuit.18Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 17 USC 507 – Limitations on Actions Most courts start that clock when the owner discovered, or reasonably should have discovered, the infringement rather than when it occurred. In 2024, the Supreme Court held that if the claim itself is timely, damages are available for the full span of the infringement, with no separate time cap on monetary recovery.19Supreme Court of the United States. Warner Chappell Music Inc v Nealy (2024) File promptly once you learn of the infringement, but older infringement is not automatically out of reach.
One boundary worth stating plainly: not every unauthorized use is infringement. Fair use is a complete defense that can defeat every remedy above. Courts weigh four factors: the purpose and character of the use, including whether it is commercial or educational; the nature of the copyrighted work; how much was used; and the effect on the market for the original.20Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 17 USC 107 – Limitations on Exclusive Rights Fair Use Fair use is unpredictable. Uses that transform the original into something with a new meaning or message tend to fare well; uses that simply substitute for the original tend to lose. Before building a case around any of the remedies here, be honest about whether fair use is in play.