Colorado Copyright Law
Copyright registration, enforcement, infringement defense, and DMCA services for creators and businesses.
Are you the author of a new film, artwork, song, video, or source code? It is never too late to register your creative works at the U.S. Copyright Office, and in most cases our copyright attorneys can handle registration for a flat fee.
Why register my creative work?
Protect your works. Registration puts others on notice of your ownership of your creative works.
Stop infringers. Give yourself more options if your rights are infringed. Works registered before the infringement begins, or within three months of publication, are eligible for statutory damages and attorneys’ fees.
Do more with your works. A certificate of registration proves your ownership, so you can pursue higher-tier licensing opportunities.
Copyright registration.Filed right the first time.
Registration at the U.S. Copyright Office.
Formalize ownership of what you create.
Do you need to register your copyrighted material to formalize ownership at the U.S. Copyright Office and put the rest of the world on notice of your copyright? It is never too late to register your creative works if you have not already, and in most cases registration is available as a flat-fee service.
Our experienced copyright registration attorneys can file expedited applications for litigation purposes, as well as compilations, works with multiple owners, groups of unpublished works, and more, for content creators across the United States and around the world.
Online registration: $199 plus the $65 filing feeExpedited filing available
What is copyrightable?
- Audiovisual works, such as film or video.
- Literary works, such as a script, book, or poetry.
- Audio and musical works, such as sound recordings and sheet music.
- Artistic works, including pictorial, drawn, and sculptural works.
- Software source code.
- Choreographic and architectural works.
- Other creative works fixed in a tangible form.
What is not copyrightable?
- A name, slogan, or logo used to market goods or services. To protect these, you need a trademark.
- A novel invention, like a technical process, machine, article of manufacture, chemical formula, or design. For this type of intellectual property, look into a patent.
- Confidential formulas or know-how, which may be best protected as a trade secret.
- Facts or ideas.
DMCA and copyright enforcement.Find it. Document it. Take it down.
Online monitoring. Our attorneys use proprietary software tools to monitor your intellectual property across the internet and provide periodic reports of activity and use.
Learn more ›NFT protection. Prevent your NFTs from being pirated or infringed on marketplaces operating on the Ethereum or Solana blockchains.
Learn more ›Content removal. Someone distributing your videos or photographs without permission? In most situations, we can help remove them.
Learn more ›DMCA notices. Prepared and sent to websites and infringers hosting your works without permission.
Send a notice ›Cease and desist letters. A formal demand that puts infringing parties on notice.
Learn more ›DMCA agent. A designated agent gives websites with user-generated content a shield against copyright infringement claims.
DMCA services ›Locating infringers. We identify and locate infringing activity so you know who you are dealing with.
Learn more ›Pursuing infringers.
Experience on both sides of the claim.
Our Colorado copyright infringement attorneys have experience both pursuing and defending copyright infringement claims, and we can evaluate your options in a consultation with an experienced attorney. Do you have a group of works that needs to be monitored online? Is someone distributing videos or photographs you took without your permission? Our lawyers can help you remove the content in most situations if you are the owner or have permission to act on the owner’s behalf.
Do you operate a website with user-generated content that needs a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) agent to shield you from copyright infringement claims? Our copyright services include preparing and sending cease and desist letters to infringing parties, preparing and sending DMCA notices to websites and infringers hosting your works without permission, acting as a DMCA agent for internet service providers, identifying and locating infringing activity, registering works at the Copyright Office, and more.
DMCA notifications and counter-notifications ›Copyright infringement defense.Strong defenses. Sensible costs.
Average attorneys’ fees and court costs to defend a copyright infringement claim through trial in Colorado, in cases where claimed damages are under $1,000,000.
Facing a lawsuit.
Costs add up before trial even begins.
Receiving a notice in the mail or by email telling you to prepare to defend a copyright infringement claim in federal court is intimidating. Defending a claim can quickly get expensive, even in the lead-up to trial, as depositions, damages experts, pretrial motions, and more add up.
Our copyright infringement defense team knows the many legal defenses to infringement claims, from online piracy through services like BitTorrent to unlawful broadcasts of pay-per-view events via satellite or cable. Our flat-fee rates are fair and can help you avoid the high costs of litigation. If your defenses are strong enough, we can also seek an early dismissal without going to trial.
Don’t pay overpriced intellectual property attorneys who pad their bottom line with high hourly rates. Contact us for a consultation with an experienced intellectual property litigator who understands BitTorrent and peer-to-peer networking not just as a lawyer, but as an IT professional.
Damages are not automatic.
A demand is not a judgment.
Even if you or your website intentionally or inadvertently violated copyright law, the owner of the work is not necessarily entitled to the maximum damages stated in their demand. You may not have violated the law at all, because you may qualify for one or more affirmative defenses to infringement.
That does not matter to certain rights holders, who operate a system of suing many defendants at once in hopes of quick settlements.
BitTorrent subpoenas and lawsuits.
Procedural defenses that matter.
If you are a defendant in a copyright infringement lawsuit, or your records are being subpoenaed for alleged unauthorized downloads through BitTorrent or other peer-to-peer or file-sharing networks, our Colorado copyright infringement defense attorneys can help. Some defendants call these plaintiffs “trolls,” while plaintiffs argue they are protecting their clients’ copyrights.
Depending on where you are in the litigation, we may recommend a motion to quash the subpoena and other procedural defenses to make sure plaintiffs aren’t taking shortcuts or using questionable methods. Without admitting liability, our clients have settled a number of infringement claims out of court, saving thousands of dollars in otherwise costly litigation and defense costs.
Evaluating the claim on its merits.
Make the plaintiff reconsider.
When you hire our Denver-area copyright infringement defense team, we can force the plaintiff to understand your defenses and evaluate the claim on its actual merits. It is possible to show, before litigation, that a claim lacks merit and that the “owner” is entitled to no damages, or to far less than the amount demanded in their letter or lawsuit.
It is often possible to call certain elements of an infringement claim into question, causing the plaintiff to reconsider how seriously to pursue a lawsuit.
Send a DMCA takedown notice today.
Online DMCA takedown and counter-notification services, prepared with the guidance of a copyright attorney.
Send a DMCA takedown noticeSend a counter-notification ›Copyright Law FAQ
I prepared a creative work. Do I have a copyright?
If you are the original author of the work, you have a copyright in it. However, the work might not be registered at the U.S. Copyright Office.
What is the DMCA?
The DMCA is the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. It modernized copyright law for the internet age and created protections that allowed companies relying on user content, like YouTube and Facebook, to flourish and grow.
Is my use of someone’s content considered “fair use”?
Possibly. It isn’t a simple determination, and a number of different factors go into assessing whether a use is fair use.
I found this visual content on the internet. Is it free to use?
Probably not. Unless the image or work is in the public domain or licensed for your use, you may be infringing on someone else’s work. Even though social media encourages copying and posting the works of others, that doesn’t mean doing so isn’t an infringement.
I received a DMCA notice. What should I do?
If you received a Digital Millennium Copyright Act notice, a copyright owner or their agent has likely detected what they believe is infringing activity coming from your IP address or website. If a demand for copyright infringement damages accompanied the notice, it is best to contact an attorney.
Someone stole my content. I want to sue.
There are several ways to approach this problem, depending on the outcome you want. An attorney can guide you through your options and how to get the results you want.
I operate a website that hosts a lot of copyrighted content. Can I be liable for my users’ infringements?
Possibly. You may need a DMCA agent for your online service. Please consult an attorney.
What is vicarious or contributory copyright infringement?
Vicarious and contributory infringement are forms of secondary liability, separate from a claim for direct infringement. Contributory infringement generally involves knowingly inducing, causing, or materially contributing to someone else’s infringement, while vicarious infringement involves profiting from an infringement you had the right and ability to stop. Napster and Grokster, for example, were sued over services that let users freely download copyrighted works.