Taking legal action if your copyright is infringed can be complicated and confusing--not to mention expensive. Suing an infringing party, which must be done in federal court, can rack up enormous legal fees, and take years to resolve. (For instance, the Authors Guild estimates that the average cost of a copyright suit is $400,000--often more than the value of the claim itself.) And there's no guarantee of success. It's a situation that, for many creators, renders their rights under copyright essentially unenforceable.
Traditionally in the USA, such suits have been creatives' only avenue of redress. Now, though, there's an alternative: the Copyright Claims Board (CCB), which opened for business yesterday.
Established by Congress in 2020 via the CASE Act, the CCB is a small claims court for copyright disputes, where creators can bring lower-dollar infringement claims (monetary damages are capped at $30,000) without having to hire an attorney or make a court appearance (proceedings are conducted entirely online). The CCB is housed within the US Copyright Office, and staffed by a three-person tribunal that oversees proceedings and is the final decision-maker on claims.
