Ready to Pay $30,000 for Sharing a Photo Online? The House of Representatives Thinks You Are
By Ernesto Falcon
Tomorrow the House of Representatives has scheduled to vote on what appears to be an unconstitutional copyright bill that carries with it life altering penalties. The bill would slap $30,000 fines on Internet users who share a copyrighted work they don't own online.
Now is the time to tell your Representative to vote NO
Supporters of the bill insist there's no problem, because $30,000 isn't that much money. They even laughed about it. We know the reality: when nearly half of this country would struggle to afford an emergency $400 expense, the penalties in this bill are deadly serious. What's worse, they'll be imposed not by an experienced judge, but instead by a committee of unaccountable bureaucrats.
What the CASE Act Does and Why it is a Disaster for Internet Users
The CASE Act creates a new tribunal separate from the federal judiciary (this is part of the constitutional problem) and places it within the Copyright Office. This agency has a sad history of industry capture, and often takes its cues from major content companies as opposed to average Americans. The new tribunals will receive complaints from rightsholders (anyone that has taken a photo, video, or written something) and will issue a "notice" to the party being sued.
We don't actually know what this notice will look like. It could be an email, a text message, a phone call with voice mail, or a letter in the mail. Once the notice goes out, the targeted user has to respond within a tight deadline. Fail to respond in time means you'll automatically lose, and are on the hook for $30,000. That's why EFF is concerned that this law will easily be abused by copyright trolls. The trolls will cast a wide net, in hopes of catching Internet users unaware. Corporations with lawyers will be able to avoid all this, because they'll have paid employees in charge of opting out of the CASE Act. But regular Americans with kids, jobs, and other real-life obligations could easily miss those notices, and lose out.
The CASE Act Radically Changes Copyright Law
One of the most disastrous changes to copyright law the bill creates is granting huge statutory damages to copyright owners who haven't even registered their works. Under current law, if you copy a work that isn't registered—meaning, the vast majority of things that are shared by users every single day—you're only on the hook for the copyright owner's actual economic loss. This is called "actual damages," and very often, it's $0. Under CASE, however, every copyrighted work will automatically eligible for $30,000 in damages—whether or not the owner has bothered to register it.
Under current law, when I take a photo of my kids and someone shares it without my permission, the most I can sue them for is nearly always $0. The CASE Act is a radical departure from this sensible rule. If it passes, sharing most of what you see online—photos, videos, writings, and other works—means risking crippling liability.
If this is upsets you and you want Congress to leave Internet users alone, then you have to contact your Representative and two Senators today, and tell them to vote NO on the CASE Act.
Copyright Trolls
Deeplinks Blog by Katharine Trendacosta | August 21, 2019
YouTube's New Lawsuit Shows Just How Far Copyright Trolls Have to Go Before They're Stopped
YouTube took a stand against a particularly pernicious copyright troll who was not only abusing the takedown system to remove content but was also using it in an extortion scam. While this gives the weight—and resources—of a large corporation in a fight that will benefit users, it also serves as...
Deeplinks Blog by Katharine Trendacosta | July 18, 2019
A Bad Copyright Bill Moves Forward With No Serious Understanding of Its Dangers
The Senate Judiciary Committee voted on the Copyright Alternative in Small-Claims Enforcement Act, aka the CASE Act. This was without any hearings for experts to explain the huge flaws in the bill as it's currently written. And flaws there are. We've seen some version of the CASE Act pop up...
Deeplinks Blog by Ernesto Falcon | July 10, 2019
Life-Altering Copyright Lawsuits Could Come to Regular Internet Users Under a New Law Moving in the Senate
The Senate Judiciary Committee intends to vote on the CASE Act, legislation that would create a brand new quasi-court for copyright infringement claims. We have expressed numerous concerns with the legislation, and serious problems inherent with the bill have not been remedied by Congress before moving it forward. In...
Hearing Monday: EFF Asks Appeals Court To Rule Copyright Can't Be Used To Control the Public's Access to Our Laws
Washington, D.C.-On Monday, May 14, at 9:30 am, EFF Legal Director Corynne McSherry will argue in court that the public has a right to access, copy, and share the law—and industry groups that helped develop certain legal rules can't inhibit that right by claiming ownership in those rules. EFF represents...
Deeplinks Blog by Mitch Stoltz | April 26, 2018
Defenders of Copyright Troll Victims Urge Congress to Reject the "Small Claims" Bill
A dedicated group of attorneys and technologists from around the U.S. defend Internet users against abuse by copyright trolls. Today, they wrote to the House Judiciary Committee with a warning about the CASE Act, a bill that would create a powerful new "small claims" tribunal at the U.S...
Deeplinks Blog by Daniel Nazer | February 15, 2018
Federal Judge Says Embedding a Tweet Can Be Copyright Infringement
Rejecting years of settled precedent, a federal court in New York has ruled [PDF] that you could infringe copyright simply by embedding a tweet in a web page. Even worse, the logic of the ruling applies to all in-line linking, not just embedding tweets. If adopted by other...
Deeplinks Blog by Mitch Stoltz | February 5, 2018
BMG v. Cox: ISPs Can Make Their Own Repeat-Infringer Policies, But the Fourth Circuit Wants A Higher "Body Count"
Last week's BMG v. Cox decision has gotten a lot of attention for its confusing take on secondary infringement liability, but commentators have been too quick to dismiss the implications for the DMCA safe harbor. Internet service providers are still not copyright...
Deeplinks Blog by Kit Walsh, Karen Gullo | October 24, 2017
What if You Had to Worry About a Lawsuit Every Time You Linked to an Image Online?
A photographer and a photo agency are teaming up to restart a legal war against online linking in the United States. When Internet users browse websites containing images, those images often are retrieved from third-parties, rather than the author of the website. Sometimes, unbeknownst to the website author, the linked...
Deeplinks Blog by Kerry Sheehan | December 12, 2016
The Music Industry Shouldn't Be Able To Cut Off Your Internet Access
EFF, Public Knowledge, and the Center for Democracy and Technology Urge The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit to Protect Internet Subscribers in BMG v. Cox. No one should have to fear losing their Internet connection because of unfounded accusations. But some rights holders want to use...
EFF at Copyright Office Roundtables Tuesday and Wednesday in San Francisco
San Francisco—On Tuesday and Wednesday, May 24-25, Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) Staff Attorney Kit Walsh and Senior Staff Attorney Mitch Stoltz will participate in public roundtable discussions about the impact of U.S. copyright law on freedoms to investigate and improve the software embedded in everyday products...