#case act

Because, as the last four years have shown us, good god is it draining to try and fight to keep a miserable status quo from getting worse without being able to try to fight for better too...

“As we wrote a few years back, the only reason that copyright doesn't destroy speech is that he world has recognized a concept of copyright toleration -- which is that, more or less, copyright holders have mostly looked the other way at incidental and accidental infringements that happen all the time. The entire point of the CASE Act is to slam the door shut on the entire idea of copyright toleration, and open the floodgates for copyright holders to shake down basically anyone for such incidental uses -- telling them they could owe up to $30,000 as assigned by a non-judicial tribunal housed in the Copyright Office itself. Supporters of the CASE Act say it's no big deal because you can opt-out of the process if you don't like it. But the opt-out process is unclear and potentially confusing. And, of course, in doing so, you are poking the copyright holder, and potentially egging them on to file an even more disastrous federal copyright lawsuit against you. But, honestly, just the mere threat of facing $30,000 fines from this new tribunal will cause many to shut up. It will cause many to pull down speech or never make it at all, because who wants to deal with that threat? And, as law professor Eric Goldman notes, we did all this to get a stimulus package that will give a mere $600 to individuals... but that $600 likely won't cover your CASE Act bill, and you'll need many more stimulus checks to deal with the fact that you promoted a song you liked. It's a complete travesty.“

CALL YOUR REPS.

Tell Congress: “Don’t feed copyright trolls and put ordinary Internet users at risk of huge fines. Vote NO on the CASE Act!” 

"Passing the CASE Act without reforms will unleash a host of lawsuits against innocent internet users and restrict their ability to defend themselves against trolls," said Democratic Senator Ron Wyden in a statement to protocol. Wyden previously tried to negotiate with Senators John Kennedy and Dick Durbin to figure out a different path forward on the CASE Act. "It is tremendously disappointing that powerful lobbying groups may be close to attaching this flawed legislation to a must-pass spending bill without commonsense changes to protect Americans from predatory copyright trolls."

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