Bethesda, MD – The American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP) applauds the U.S. House of Representatives for passing the Copyright Alternative in Small-claims Enforcement Act (the CASE Act), H.R. 2426, with an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote of 410-6.
There is a long list of supporters in Congress that ASMP would like to thank for their strong support of the CASE Act and all in the creative community, starting with Representatives Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) and Doug Collins (R-GA) for understanding the challenges faced by individual creators as small business owners and their determination into make a difference by introducing the CASE Act in the House. ASMP would also like to thank the original co-sponsors of H.R. 2426, Representatives Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Hank Johnson (D-GA), Martha Roby (R-AL), Judy Chu (D-CA), Ben Cline (R-VA), Ted Lieu (D-CA), and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) for their strong commitment to this critical legislation, and all the other co-sponsors who heard our voices and the voices of our colleagues, and stepped up to support passage of the bill.
The CASE Act would create a small claims tribunal in the United States Copyright Office to hear copyright infringement cases, and provide photographers, graphic artists, illustrators, authors, songwriters and other individual creators and small businesses, for the first time an affordable and accessible venue to protect their creative efforts from infringement.
“From the moment I became Executive Director of ASMP”, stated Tom Kennedy, “it was clear to me that the copyright system needed this reform.” Photographers, designers, illustrators, graphic artists, songwriters, musicians, authors, filmmakers, and creators all need a new mechanism to address the harm caused by infringements and an alternative to federal court – a venue that has often proven out of their reach because of costs and complexity. Passage of the CASE Act would give creators a new remedy to go with their right to intellectual property protection, and a viable alternative to federal court.”
Mike Klipper, ASMP’s copyright counsel, said “today’s resounding House vote is an important milestone in the longstanding effort to help ensure that small businesses and individual creators finally have access to a venue in which to defend their creative works from copyright infringement—unfortunately an increasingly serious problem in our digital world.”