Assessing the Copyright Claims Board After Two Years

<p>On June 16, 2024, the U.S. Copyright Office celebrated the two-year anniversary of operations of the Copyright Claims Board ("CCB''), a novel new small claims court housed within the agency. The CCB was preceded by years of debate about the benefits and risks of such a small claims court. Proponents argued that the CCB would offer rightsholders a low-cost, efficient alternative to litigation in federal courts, allowing small creators to more effectively defend their rights. Opponents feared that the CCB would foster abuse, encouraging frivolous lawsuits while creating a trap for unwary defendants. This short article tests those arguments in one of the first detailed empirical reviews of the CCB 's first two years of operations based on data extracted from the CCB 's online filing system for the 880 claims filed with the court between June 2022 and June 2024.</p> <p><span>A previous and similar paper addressed the first year of operations of the CCB and is available at&nbsp;https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4563726.&nbsp;</span></p>

Duke Scholars

Author David Hansen School of Law