united-states copyright clean-hands
Is a revised version of a PD work with no indication of new authorship or copyright notice protected by copyright in the US?
<p>This is a followup to <a href="https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/74704/are-new-works-without-a-copyright-notice-automatically-copyrighted-under-the-ber/74707?noredirect=1#comment157656_74707">this comment</a> and the subsequent interchange.</p>
<p>Suppose that a person A publishes a new edition of a work clearly in the Public Domain (PD) such as Conan Doyle's <em>Adventures of Sherlock Holmes</em> or Shakespeare's <em>Hamlet</em>.  Suppose further that significant alterations and/or additions have been made to the PD text by A, but there is no copyright notice, and no explicit claim of authorship of those alterations, not in the name of A or,any other name. Is this work effectively protected by copyright?</p>
<p>If another person, B, copies A's revised version and publishes that, Can A successfully sue B? Would the equitable doctrine of &quot;clean hands&quot; prevent such a suit or be raisable as a defense? Could B claim that it is not reasonable to expect B to compare A's version with some other version to detect that changes have been made from teh PD version?</p>
<p>If the revised work includes a statement at the front such as &quot;Includes revisions made 2018&quot; but no statement or claim of authorship and no copyright notice, can A then sue?</p>

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<p>Is this work effectively protected by copyright?</p>
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<p>Yes.</p>
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<p>If another person, B, copies A's revised version and publishes that, Can A successfully sue B?</p>
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<p>Yes.</p>
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<p>Would the equitable doctrine of &quot;clean hands&quot; prevent such a suit or be raisable as a defense?</p>
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<p>No. Copyright is a right granted by statute- it is not an equitable remedy so limitations from equity don’t apply, just as they don’t apply to contract disputes.</p>
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<p>Could B claim that it is not reasonable to expect B to compare A's version with some other version to detect that changes have been made from teh PD version?</p>
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<p>No. B is obliged to check that they are not breaching copyright <em>before</em> they make a copy.</p>

<p>If the revised work contains no clear indication that it had been revised, then even if the &quot;clean hands&quot; doctrine is held not to apply, B is probably an &quot;innocent infringer&quot; under <a href="https://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap5.html#504" rel="nofollow noreferrer">17 USC 504</a> (c)(2), on the grounds that  the &quot;infringer was not aware and had no reason to believe that his or her acts constituted an infringement of copyright&quot;. This reduces the floor on statutory damages to $200, but does not change the amount of any actual damages that may have been proved, if the plaintiff elects actual damages.</p>
<p>If it is the case that:</p>
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<p>the revised work includes a statement at the front such as &quot;Includes revisions made 2018&quot; but no statement or claim of authorship and no copyright notice</p>
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<p>then the reuser has &quot;reason to believe that his or her acts constituted an infringement of copyright&quot; and would not qualify as an inncent infringer.</p>
<p>I have not been able to find a reported case with a fact pattern similer to the one in the question.</p>
