TIME TO CONTACT YOUR CONGRESSIONAL REPRESENTATIVE REGARDING THE SMALL CLAIMS COURT BILL

Ask Your Congressional Representative to Vote in Favor of H.R. 3945 - A Bill to Create a Small Claims Court!Dear Creators and Friends of the Creative Community,The time is now to support creators and the creator community! In early to mid-April, the House Judiciary Committee will likely consider and vote on H.R. 3945, the Copyright Alternative in Small-Claims Enforcement Act (CASE ACT) of 2017, a bill that will create a copyright small claims court for professional creators and small businesses. Your representative in Congress needs to know that you support the bill. If you haven’t contacted your representative, now is the time to do so. And if you have contacted them, now is the time to remind them that the creative community needs their support.For many photographers, illustrators, authors, songwriters, and other creators and small businesses that own copyrighted works, enforcing their rights is simply not feasible. Litigation is expensive and most of these creators can’t afford to enforce their rights in federal court. In effect, the U.S. copyright system provides creators with rights but no effective remedies. To address this problem, the U.S. Copyright Office released a study recommending the creation of a simplified process for resolving lower value copyright claims.On October 4, 2017, Representatives Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) and Tom Marino (R-PA), as well as Representatives Doug Collins (R-GA), Lamar Smith (R-TX), Judy Chu (D-CA), and Ted Lieu (D-CA), introduced H.R. 3945 to effectuate the Copyright Office’s recommendations. This bipartisan bill would create a voluntary small claims court within the U.S. Copyright Office to provide copyright owners with an alternative to the expensive process of bringing infringement claims in federal court. This new court, called the Copyright Claims Board (CCB) would provide an easy and streamlined process for creators – including the ability to conduct proceedings remotely. Most significantly, participation in the court is 100% voluntary and inexpensive.Organizations representing individual creators and small businesses have already voiced their support. Now it’s vital that legislators hear directly from creators about the importance of this issue.Please contact your representative to ask them to support H.R. 3945. We’ve provided a sample letter here that you can send, or feel free to modify it (or use your own letter).You can also call your representative using the list of phone numbers here.And you can tag or direct message him/her on Twitter. Please click here, and then click on the twitter icon for your representative.The important thing is to let your voice be heard on this important issue!For more information, please see the following:A copy of the bill can be found here.A summary of the bill can be found here.Statements of support and other information about the bill can be found here.Please join the Copyright Alliance, DMLA and all creative community to support this important bill. Information courtesy of the Copyright Alliance.