The individual copyright holder whether a photographer, illustrator, or multi national corporation and regardless of the size of the claim, is required by law to have a copyright case heard in Federal Court and Federal Court only.\u00a0 Unlike many state and local courts, which have different procedures for cases of different types and magnitudes, Federal District Courts are geared to large and complex cases.\u00a0 State courts separate criminal cases, from divorce cases, from personal injury cases, from matters involving millions of dollars, from those where only a few thousand may be at stake, and so on.<\/p>\n
The overwhelming majority of cases in Federal District Courts involve complex legal issues, substantial sums and well-financed parties. The Federal Courts don’t see the volume of simpler cases as the local or state courts do.\u00a0 This has lead to the unfortunate situation where a creator – typically an individual –\u00a0must litigate against a larger and better capitalized defendant in a Court best suited for “the big guy”.<\/p>\n
The costs of litigation may be oppressive even when the creator has the possibility of recovering attorney’s fees thanks to timely registration and a winning case.\u00a0 Well healed defendants using a court system designed for large cases, has made it difficult or economically “not viable” for most attorneys to bring copyright cases worth say, $75,000.\u00a0 Real money to a creator is often minuscule in comparison to the amounts at issue in most Federal Court cases.\u00a0 Even sympathetic judges are anxious to rid their calendars of smaller cases to make way for larger civil cases and the criminal cases that Federal judges are saddled with.<\/p>\n
I have\u00a0complained to\u00a0and cajoled Federal judges and magistrates to institute a system whereby a creator with a case realistically worth less than $100,000 be permitted to fast track the case so as to lower costs to the creator, stop opposing counsel from running their fees up and trim court involvement.\u00a0 33 years of bringing cases where multi-national corporations and media companies inflict expenses and costs upon creators as a perfectly legitimate legal tactic, have resulted in some ideas which can make litigation faster and less expensive.\u00a0\u00a0 It was part of our goal to make such cases more enticing and profitable to lawyers nationwide so that finding legal counsel on an affordable basis would become a reality for photographers in burgs big and small.<\/p>\n
It has been a long standing goal of mine to “Fast Track” smaller<\/strong> copyright cases so as to avoid to the expenses, extensive pre-trial discovery, endless expert testimony and the sheer amount of time employed in a large case but used as a deterrent to an individual even thinking of filing a copyright action against a corporate defendant with a reasonably fat wallet.\u00a0 Most of our clients are creatives whose work has been ripped off.\u00a0 As a result, most of the companies we sue are large entertainment conglomerates, ad agencies, multi national corporations and large consumer product manufacturers,<\/p>\n In conjunction with the American Photographic Artists (APA) and esteemed copyright scholar, David Nimmer, Esq., we have submitted a plan in response to a request from the United States Copyright Office.\u00a0 You can view it here:<\/p>\n