
The House Votes in Favor of Disastrous Copyright Bill - Elof
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/house-votes-favor-disastrous-copyright-bill
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AnimalMuppet
Is this description really accurate? Some random person can wind up owing
$30,000 because some bureaucrat decides that they do? Without a court
proceeding? That seems... almost certainly unconstitutional, and absolutely
certainly a _terrible_ idea.

Then there's the little matter of malicious misuse or harassment. I mean,
forget swatting someone, you could cause serious havoc by "mistakenly"
dropping a few of these accusations on someone.

What's the best way to persuade senators that this is a terrible idea (or at
least a politically toxic one)?

~~~
rayiner
The description isn’t inaccurate. Instead, in what has become an EFF norm,
it’s selectively accurate. The CASE Act creates a voluntary small claims court
procedure for low value copyright claims: [https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-
blog/judicial/466742-the-...](https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-
blog/judicial/466742-the-case-for-the-case-act). That is currently impossible
today because the Copyright Act requires claims to be brought in federal
court. Parties can, at their election, proceed before the Copyright Office,
with or without lawyers. There is still an adjudication of sorts, but the
procedures are relaxed just as they are with small claims. Parties can also
exercise their right to go to federal court.

The EFF has some legitimate concerns here. The CASE Act lowers the barrier to
asserting copyright claims, which might be a bad thing. The same point could
have been made in an article that didn’t read like a Trump tweet series.

~~~
gurumeditations
So EFF’s description is accurate.

------
lonelappde
I thought HN banned blatantly editorialized headlines.

EFF Deep Links is reliably extremist in its interpretation of news.

Here's a more neutral report:

[https://www.billboard.com/amp/articles/business/8531531/case...](https://www.billboard.com/amp/articles/business/8531531/case-
act-supporters-passage-senators-reservations)

And a pro-CASE opinion from the President of the American Bar Association:
[https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-
blog/judicial/466742-the-...](https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-
blog/judicial/466742-the-case-for-the-case-act)

~~~
AnimalMuppet
You expect Billboard to be _neutral_ on this? That seems possible, but
unlikely.

