factually inaccurate, that the inaccuracies were willful or deliberate, and that the Copyright Office relied on those misrepresentations." Lennon v. Seaman, 84 F. Supp.2d 522, 525 (S.D.N.Y. 2000) (citations omitted); see also Eckes v. Card Prices Update, 736 F.2d 859, 861-62 (2d Cir. 1984) ("Only the knowing failure to advise the copyright office of facts which might have occasioned a rejection of the application constitute[s] reason for holding the registration invalid and thus incapable of supporting an infringement action.") (internal quotations omitted); Whimsicality, Inc. v. Rubie's Costume Co., 891 F.2d 452, 456 (2d Cir. 1989). To prevail on this defense, Defendants must establish that FIP's efforts to register the copyright were "motivated by scienter rising to the level of deliberate misrepresentation." Gibson Tex, Inc. v. Sears Roebuck & Co., 11 F. Supp.2d 439 (S.D.N.Y. 1998).
Plaintiffs contend that Skutch never had a conversation with the Copyright Office regarding the effect of listing Jesus as an author, and that, in any event, the countervailing evidence of a fraudulent motive is inadmissible, because it comes from the December 1992 Article written by Wapnick and/or Gloria Wapnick without personal knowledge of the facts surrounding Skutch's conversations with the Copyright Office in 1975. With regard to these factual contentions, however, there is, as set forth in the
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