Copyright Alternative in Small-Claims Enforcement Act of 2019

Floor Speech

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New York for his leadership on this important issue.

The United States Constitution expressly calls for the protection of creative works in order to promote innovation and creativity. Under that lofty authority, Congress established the copyright system. As was the hope, copyright-intensive industries have become critical to our economy, reportedly contributing more than $1 trillion.

Unfortunately, in the system that we have today, many small businesses and individuals are unable to enforce their copyrights because they do not have deep enough pockets. It costs tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to hire lawyers to litigate a copyright claim in Federal court.

Sadly, this forces individuals to stand idly by as thieves profit off of their work. Our Founding Fathers wouldn't want a copyright system that discourages creators. After all, they wanted to create a system that fosters the creation of artistic works. That is why so many members of the Judiciary Committee helped craft legislation to stop the theft of copyrighted works and so many Members of the House have joined in support of it.

H.R. 2426, the CASE Act, would establish a copyright small claims proceeding within the Copyright Office to provide a less expensive alternative to costly Federal court litigation.

The proceedings would be simple, conducted remotely, handled by a panel of copyright experts, and limited to straightforward cases of alleged copyright infringement.

Damage awards would be low, reaching a maximum of no greater than $15,000 per work, with a total award for a case capped at $30,000. Participation in such a small claims proceeding would be completely voluntary, and anyone falsely accused of infringement could simply opt out of the small claims proceeding.

The CASE Act includes a number of other safeguards to prevent abuse. The Copyright Office is authorized to limit the number of cases one person can file and will review the allegations for sufficiency before forwarding them to the accused infringer.

If an accuser files in bad faith, he or she would have to pay fees to the party falsely accused of infringement and be barred for 1 year.

Several other provisions of H.R. 2426 would protect against inadvertent default judgments. They include requirements that the accused infringer be physically served; the complaint warn the accused infringer of the ramifications of not responding; and the accused be given several notices and chances to respond to the allegations against them.

Most importantly, before a default judgment can be granted, the copyright owner must establish that their copyright was actually infringed by the accused.

The bill is intended to provide a streamlined, inexpensive alternative for parties to resolve small claims of copyright infringement outside of court. H.R. 2426 accomplishes all of these goals.

I am proud to join my colleagues--Congressman Jeffries, Ranking Member Collins, Chairman Nadler, Martha Roby, Hank Johnson, Judy Chu, Ted Lieu, and Brian Fitzpatrick--to provide an important avenue of relief to the creators in our communities who provide such significant support to our local economies.

I urge my colleagues to support this legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman again for his leadership on this issue, and I thank the chairman for his remarks.

Again, this bill is a purely optional system and allows anyone who doesn't wish to participate to opt out. The Copyright Office considered this feature in its report back in 2013 and highlighted significant shortcomings of an opt-in approach, including concerns that such a system would fail to capture infringers who choose to ignore a claim of infringement and/or fail to return an affirmative written response regarding agreement to participate in the system, as is currently the case.

The opt-out system provided in the CASE Act does not change the voluntary nature of the small claims process it creates. In fact, it is simple, and respondents would be made aware of their right to opt out as well as the consequences of opting out and not opting out, which would be prominently stated and explained in the notice they receive.

Again, Mr. Speaker, I would say that this is a bipartisan initiative. I would just add several different Members on both sides participated. I want to thank all of them for their hard work. I want to thank the staff for their hard work, as well.

This will go a long way toward furthering the protection of creative works as our Founders intended in the U.S. Constitution.

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