The latest available data from the federal courts show that fewer copyright infringement suits are being filed. During August 2017 the government reported 261 new lawsuits over alleged violations of copyright statutes.
According to the case-by-case court records analyzed by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University, 3,183 such suits were filed during the first eleven months of FY 2017.
[Clip]
If a similar pace of filings continues through the end of FY 2017, civil copyright filings will reach an estimated 3,472 this year. The pace of filings this year is down 12.2 percent from last year, and off nearly a third from the number of suits filed in FY 2015. That year a record number of 5,042 copyright infringement matters were filed.
[Clip] Source: Copyright Infringement Suits Filed in Federal District Court (via TRAC; September 29. 2017)
[Clip]
Thus far this year the largest number of copyright infringement cases have been filed in the Central District of California (Los Angeles) where a total of 674 suits have already been initiated. This single district accounts for over one out of every five cases (21.1%) filed in federal courts across the entire United States.
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area.
He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit.
Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.
