New Copyright Small Claims Court Could Be A Game Changer For The Internet

When Jeff Sedlik opens up Amazon, he sees his work for sale all over the place. A successful commercial photographer, his photos are easily spotted on T-shirts, hats, bibs, mugs, calendars, cell phone cases and so forth.

Few of those sellers use his work with permission. Instead of legally licensing Sedlik’s pictures — which include a haunting 1989 portrait of jazz legend Miles Davis — they pull images off the Internet and slap them on products quickly bought from printing companies such as Red Bubble and Café Press. While strangers profit from his work, Sedlik doesn’t see a dime. There’s little, he says, he can do to protect himself.

"As fast as I can, I send what are called DMCA takedown notices to Amazon and they sometimes take [the products] down and when they do, they come right back up within a week," Sedlik explains. "And if I want to go to federal court, I need to engage a lawyer. And if I want to engage a layer, it’s very expensive. "

That’s where the CASE Act comes in.