CASE act (copyright small claims) passes US House

[Dan Robinson]

Great news of a major win for chasers and content creators this week from the US House of Representatives: the CASE Act has passed with overwhelming support and is headed to the Senate!

House approves CASE Act to create small claims court for copyright cases

The US House of Representative approved the Copyright Alternative in Small-Claims Enforcement (CASE) Act on Tuesday. The purpose of the CASE Act is, 'to establish an alternative dispute resolution pro...

www.jurist.org

For more info on this bill, see our previous thread on the issue:

Bill introduced in U.S. Congress to create copyright small claims court

H.R. 3945 has been introduced in Congress to create a small claims court for copyright infringement cases. If you have dealt with copyright issues, you know that contingency attorneys will not pursue small-time cases as there is little profit involved for them. Since these small cases make up...

stormtrack.org

 

[Dan Robinson]

As usual, we have some opposition to this from the likes of the Electronic Frontier Foundation brewing now that the bill is apparently on the verge of succeeding. Take note of who is opposing it: it is nearly all supported by big Tech companies, the media and their interests - that is, those who are currently profiting the most from stolen content. They are mostly making the claims that the law will make it easy for big companies to go after individuals for small-time offenses like posting a photo to a personal Facebook feed.

The reality is that the law is set up to prevent this. Anti-trolling measures to hold serial abusers accountable is built into the legislation. Here is a good overview:

The CASE Act: You Have Questions. We Have the Answers.

What is the CASE Act? The CASE Act is the acronym for a bill called the “Copyright Alternative in Small-Claims Enforcement Act of 2019” (the “CASE Act”) that would create a three-“judge” tribunal called the

copyrightalliance.org

Furthermore, these arguments always minimize the potential harm in even an individual sharing a copyrighted photo or video can cause. If that second copy goes viral instead of the creator's original on Youtube for example, the creator could lose thousands in monetized revenue. Instead of using this bill to scare the populace into opposing it, they should be using it to educate people about respecting others' intellectual property.