Allen v. Cooper
Allen v. Cooper (March 23, 2020) was a U.S. Supreme Court case about whether Congress can remove a state's sovereign immunity in copyright lawsuits.
The facts involve the Queen Anne’s Revenge shipwreck off the North Carolina coast. North Carolina owned the wreck and hired Intersal, Inc. to recover it. Intersal hired videographer Frederick Allen to document the recovery, and Allen created videos and photos and registered copyrights for his works. When North Carolina published some of Allen’s works online, Allen sued for copyright infringement.
North Carolina argued it could not be sued because of state sovereign immunity. Allen argued that Congress had removed state immunity in copyright cases through the Copyright Remedy Clarification Act of 1990 (CRCA).
A federal district court ruled for Allen, saying the CRCA abrogated state immunity under the Fourteenth Amendment. The Fourth Circuit reversed.
The Supreme Court, in a 2020 decision, held that Congress did not have the authority to abrogate states’ sovereign immunity in copyright cases via the CRCA. The Court said Florida Prepaid Postsecondary Ed. Expense Bd. v. College Savings Bank (2004) forbids Congress from using its Article I powers to strip state immunity in copyright matters. The Court also concluded that Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment does not authorize this kind of copyright-based abrogation.
The ruling means North Carolina’s immunity protected it in this case, and Allen’s copyright claims against the state could not proceed. The decision limits Congress’s power to remove state immunity in copyright matters.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 18:14 (CET).