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A federal court can award $750 to $30,000 for each infringed work in a standard copyright case. For willful infringement, that amount can reach $150,000 per work. Each work counts separately, so a lawsuit over 30 songs could result in 30 separate awards.

Our research team compared the Copyright Act with federal court records from 2007 through July 2026. The tables below start with the statutory ranges, then compare them with actual jury awards and the largest copyright class settlement on record.

Key Takeaways:

  • Standard statutory damages run $750 to $30,000 per work, while statutory damages for willful infringement range from $750 to $150,000 per work.
  • Statutory damages generally require copyright registration before the infringement starts or within 3 months after publication.
  • Juries in three cases in this report awarded $9,250 to about $99,830 per work, and the Supreme Court reversed the largest verdict in March 2026.
  • An Anthropic class settlement paid about $3,100 per work, roughly 2% of the $150,000 maximum for willful infringement.

Statutory and Actual Damages by Type

A copyright owner can choose between statutory damages and actual damages plus the infringer’s profits. The owner can make that choice any time before final judgment. Statutory damages apply per work. So copying one photograph 100 times counts as one award, while copying 100 different photographs counts as 100 awards.

The table below shows the damage types, their ranges, and their registration requirements:

Damage Type Minimum Maximum Registration Required
Standard infringement $750 per work $30,000 per work Before the infringement starts or within 3 months of first publication
Willful infringement $750 per work $150,000 per work Same as standard infringement
Innocent infringement $200 per work $30,000 per work Same as standard infringement
Actual damages and profits The owner’s proven loss Proven loss plus the infringer’s profits No timing condition

Key Insights:

  • Willful infringement raises the ceiling fivefold, from $30,000 to $150,000 per work.
  • A late registration usually limits the owner to actual damages and the infringer’s profits.

Statutory Exposure by Number of Works

Statutory exposure means the potential amount a defendant could owe based on the number of infringed works. The total equals the number of works multiplied by the amount awarded per work. So a defendant sued over 24 songs faces a different range than a defendant sued over one song.

The table below applies each statutory level to four common case sizes:

Works Infringed At $750 At $30,000 At $150,000
1 work $750 $30,000 $150,000
10 works $7,500 $300,000 $1.5 million
24 works $18,000 $720,000 $3.6 million
100 works $75,000 $3 million $15 million

Key Insights:

  • The gap between the minimum and maximum grows sharply with the number of works. For 1 work, the gap is $149,250. For 100 works, it reaches $14.925 million.
  • Courts choose the actual amount within the statutory range. The $150,000 figure represents the maximum per work for willful infringement.

Jury Awards per Work in 3 Landmark Cases

Juries have applied the ranges above in real-world copyright disputes, but the awards can look very different depending on the facts. Two examples involve individual file sharers. A third shows what happens when a case covers thousands of works and targets an internet provider over its subscribers’ downloads.

The table below shows the award per work, total award, and appeal outcome:

Case Works Award per Work Total Award Appeal Outcome
Capitol Records v. Thomas-Rasset 24 songs $9,250 $222,000 Eighth Circuit vacated the district court’s judgment and directed entry of the $222,000 award
Sony BMG Music Entertainment v. Tenenbaum 30 songs $22,500 $675,000 First Circuit reinstated the award in 2011 after a district court cut it to $67,500 and affirmed it in 2013
Cox Communications v. Sony Music Entertainment 10,017 works About $99,830 $1 billion Supreme Court reversed the contributory-liability ruling in March 2026

Key Insights:

  • The two individual file-sharing cases stayed below $30,000 per song. Cox’s award averaged about $99,830 per work, showing how a case can reach a much larger total without hitting the $150,000 maximum per work.
  • The Cox verdict reached $1 billion largely because the case covered 10,017 works. The Supreme Court later reversed the contributory-liability ruling that supported the verdict.

Bartz v. Anthropic Settlement Math

The Bartz v. Anthropic class action shows how the per-work formula can scale when a case covers hundreds of thousands of works. The court granted final approval of the $1.5 billion settlement on July 20, 2026, covering 482,460 books.

Judge William Alsup ruled in 2025 that Anthropic’s training of Claude on lawfully acquired books qualified as fair use, while its use of pirated copies to build a permanent central library did not. Claimants have filed claims for 440,490 of the listed works, or 91.3%.

The table below compares the settlement with the potential exposure at each statutory level:

Measure Figure
Settlement amount $1.5 billion
Works on the final list 482,460
Gross settlement per work About $3,100
Exposure at $750 per work About $362 million
Exposure at $30,000 per work About $14.5 billion
Exposure at $150,000 per work About $72.4 billion
Settlement share of the willful maximum About 2%

Key Insights:

  • At about $3,100 per work, the settlement sits much closer to the $750 statutory minimum than the $30,000 standard maximum.
  • The 91.3% claim rate means claimants filed claims for more than nine out of every ten works on the final list.

Rules That Change an Award

Five provisions of the Copyright Act can raise, lower, or limit a copyright award. The table below shows what each rule changes and where it appears in the statute:

Rule Effect on the Award
Willful infringement Raises the ceiling to $150,000 per work when the plaintiff proves knowledge or reckless disregard
Innocent infringement Lets the court reduce the award to as little as $200 per work when the defendant had no reason to believe the acts infringed
Compilations Counts the parts of a compilation or derivative work as one work
Late registration Blocks statutory damages for infringement that began before registration unless the owner registered within 3 months of first publication
Attorney’s fees Lets the court award reasonable fees to the prevailing party

Key Insights:

  • Continued use after a notice does not automatically prove willfulness. The defendant’s good-faith belief that the use was lawful can matter.
  • Attorney’s fees do not depend on the size of the copyright award. The court decides whether to award them to the prevailing party.

Further Reading

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Sources