John,
Have you ever shared a meme that you didn’t make? Or downloaded a photo you saw on social media? If Congress has its way, this could get you slapped with a $15,000 fine by copyright trolls with no chance of appeal—just for doing normal stuff on the Internet.1
These trolls buy up copyrights with the sole intent of sending out mass threats and lawsuits to harvest settlements.2 Now, a dangerous new bill called the Copyright Alternative in Small Claims Enforcement (CASE) Act is sailing through Congress to make it easier for everyone from trolls to Hollywood producers to sue you. And it just slipped through a Senate Committee, clearing the way for a full Senate vote.
Tell Congress: “The CASE Act puts ordinary Internet users at risk of huge fines from copyright trolls. Vote NO on the CASE Act!”
TAKE ACTION
In recent years, federal courts have made it easier for regular people to defend themselves from frivolous lawsuits by trolls. But the CASE Act would create a separate, industry-friendly system for copyright claims up to $30,000, with no option of appeal.3
The corporate interests pushing this bill through Congress are the same ones that created the SOPA/PIPA. You know their names: the Copyright Alliance. The Motion Picture Association of America. The Recording Industry Association of America.4
These corporate lobbyists are obsessed with locking down the Internet and making it easy to squeeze every cent out of you—even if that means enabling an army of copyright trolls along the way. We can’t let that happen.
Tell Congress: “The CASE Act is bad for the Internet and bad for free speech. Don’t feed copyright trolls. Vote NO on the CASE Act!”
Thanks for all you do,
Shuo for FFTF
Footnotes:
1. Electronic Frontier Foundation: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/11/creating-copyright-court-copyright-office-wrong-move
2. Electronic Frontier Foundation: https://www.eff.org/document/letter-opposing-case-act
3. Public Knowledge: https://www.publicknowledge.org/news-blog/blogs/the-consequences-of-regulatory-capture-at-the-copyright-office
4. Copyright Alliance: https://copyrightalliance.org/news-events/copyright-news-newsletters/copyright-small-claims/
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