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Citation[]

Allen v. Cooper, __ U.S. __, 140 S.Ct. 994 (2021) (full-text).

Factual Background[]

A videographer and his video production company brought suit inter alia against North Carolina and certain state officials seeking a declaration that a North Carolina statute that converted copyrighted images of shipwreck to the public record was preempted by federal copyright law and was unconstitutional, and asserting claims for copyright infringement. North Carolina moved to dismiss the lawsuit on the ground of state sovereign immunity.

U.S. Supreme Court Proceedings[]

The U.S. Supreme Court struck down as unconstitutional the Copyright Remedy Clarification Act of 1990 (CRCA). The CRCA subjected states to liability for copyright infringement to the same extent as other parties. The Court held that the law was an invalid exercise of Congress's power to abrogate states' sovereign immunity against suit in federal court. The Court reaffirmed that under the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, Congress may abrogate states' immunity in order to redress unconstitutional conduct. But it concluded that the legislative record at the time of the CRCA's enactment was insufficient to support abrogation. The Court noted, however, that its decision "need not prevent Congress from passing a valid copyright abrogation law in the future." It observed that, in adopting the CRCA, "Congress likely did not appreciate the importance of linking the scope of its abrogation to the redress or prevention of unconstitutional injuries — and of creating a legislative record to back up that connection." The Court thus made clear that Congress may validly abrogate sovereign immunity if it has a sufficient record of unconstitutional infringement by states.

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