Answers/Glossary/Statutory damages

Glossary · Copyright

Statutory damages

By Boboy Watson·Last verified August 31, 2026·Also called Statutory damages for copyright infringement, 504(c) damages

Statutory damages exist because proving actual financial loss from copyright infringement is often impossible. Under 17 U.S.C. 504(c), a copyright owner may instead elect an award within a range set by the statute: not less than $750 and not more than $30,000 per work infringed, as the court considers just. Where the infringement is proved wilful, the court may raise the award to as much as $150,000 per work; where the infringer proves it was innocent, the court may reduce it to as little as $200.

The catch, and it is the whole reason registration matters, is 17 U.S.C. 412. Statutory damages and attorney's fees are unavailable for infringement of an unpublished work that began before registration, or for infringement of a published work that began after publication and before registration — unless registration happened within three months of first publication. Register late and you are left proving actual damages, which for an independent artist usually means proving very little.

This is why the timing advice on registration is specific rather than vague. Registering with the US Copyright Office is cheap: $45 for a Single Application, $65 for a Standard Application, and $65 for a Group Registration of Works on an Album of Music, per the Copyright Office fee schedule retrieved August 2026. Registering an album for $65 within three months of release preserves the remedies that make enforcement economically possible.

The misunderstanding: thinking statutory damages are a payday waiting to happen. They are leverage, and leverage you forfeit by registering late.

I register on release day for exactly this reason — but I am not a lawyer, and enforcement needs one.

Definitions on this site describe the United States system. I am an artist who has been through this, not a lawyer.