The Copyright Claims Board (CCB): a small business guide

The Copyright Claims Board (CCB) is a three-member tribunal inside the US Copyright Office that acts like a small claims court for copyright disputes. It was created by the CASE Act of 2020 and started hearing cases in 2022. If a photographer, stock agency, or enforcement firm files a CCB claim against your business, damages are capped at $30,000 per case, and statutory damages at $15,000 per work, or $7,500 per work ($15,000 in total) if the work wasn't registered in time (17 U.S.C. 1504(e)(1)). You have a limited window to opt out, and ignoring the notice can lead to a default determination that can be enforced against you in federal court.

If you run a website, a WordPress blog, a Shopify store, or an agency, this is one of the copyright enforcement paths that is most likely to land on your desk. Here is what a CCB claim actually looks like and what your options are.

What is the Copyright Claims Board?

The CCB is a voluntary alternative to federal court for smaller copyright disputes. Congress set it up through the CASE Act (Copyright Alternative in Small-Claims Enforcement Act) because suing in federal court is slow and expensive, which put ordinary photographers and small creators out of reach of any real remedy.

Three key points define the CCB:

• It is run by the US Copyright Office, not a regular courthouse.
• It is designed to be used without a lawyer, and filing costs are far lower than federal litigation.
• Proceedings are handled largely online, through written submissions and video conferences rather than in-person trials.

For a claimant, that means filing a copyright claim is now cheap and simple. For a respondent (that is you, if someone claims you used their image), it means claims that would never have justified a federal lawsuit can now be brought against you directly.

How the CCB differs from federal court

The whole point of the CCB is scale. In a US federal copyright lawsuit, statutory damages can reach $150,000 per work for willful infringement under 17 U.S.C. 504(c), for works registered in time (17 U.S.C. 412). The CCB is capped much lower, which is both the good news and the reason claimants like it for smaller matters.

Feature	Copyright Claims Board (CCB)	Federal court
Damages cap	$30,000 total per case; statutory damages up to $15,000 per work ($7,500 if not registered in time)	Statutory damages up to $150,000 per work for willful infringement
Lawyer required	No, designed for self-representation	Effectively yes for most parties
Filing and legal cost	Low filing fee, minimal cost	High, with attorney fees on both sides
Format	Online, written and video	In-person litigation
Can you refuse to participate	Yes, you can opt out	No, you must respond to a lawsuit

In US federal court, statutory damages range from $750 to $30,000 per work, up to $150,000 for willful infringement, and are available only for works registered in time (17 U.S.C. 504(c) and 412), so the CCB caps sit at the lower end of that scale. That lower ceiling is why the CCB is often the venue of choice for a single photo or a handful of images rather than a large catalog. Our guide to statutory damages for a single image covers the federal side in more detail.

What a CCB claim looks like

If a claim is filed against you, you do not just get an email you can delete. The process is formal:

1. The claimant files a claim with the CCB and pays a filing fee.
2. A CCB attorney reviews the claim for compliance before it can proceed.
3. You, the respondent, are served with the claim and a notice explaining your rights.
4. The clock starts on your opt-out window.

The notice will name the work at issue, describe the alleged infringement, and tell you how to respond or opt out. Because it comes from the US Copyright Office, it is easy to mistake for junk mail or, worse, to assume it is a scam and ignore it. That is the one reaction most likely to make things worse.

Your opt-out right, and why it matters

The CCB is a voluntary system, and that cuts both ways. You have the right to opt out of any proceeding, which forces the claimant back to federal court if they want to pursue you at all. For many small claims, the claimant will not bother, because federal litigation is expensive and slow.

But there is a catch that trips people up: opting out is not automatic. You have to actively do it within a limited window after you are served. If you miss that window, you are treated as having consented to the proceeding, and the case moves forward whether or not you participate.

So the decision tree looks like this:

• Opt out in time: the CCB proceeding ends. The claimant can only continue in federal court, which they often will not do for a small claim.
• Stay in and defend: you participate in a low-cost proceeding where damages are capped and you do not necessarily need a lawyer.
• Do nothing: you lose the chance to opt out, and you also risk a default determination.

Which path is right depends on the strength of the claim, whether you actually used the image, and how much exposure you face. This is not legal advice, and if the numbers are meaningful you should talk to an attorney. But the one option that is almost never smart is doing nothing.

Why ignoring a CCB notice is risky

Here is the part small site owners underestimate. If you neither opt out nor participate, the CCB can enter a default determination against you. That is a decision on the merits made without your side of the story, and it is enforceable. It can be taken to a federal district court and turned into a judgment, which opens the door to collection.

In other words, silence does not make a CCB claim go away. It removes your defenses and hands the claimant a decision by default. The whole design of the system assumes that a served respondent who wants out will say so. If you say nothing, the process reads that as consent.

If you have received something that looks like a formal copyright claim, do not assume it is a bluff. Enforcement firms like Higbee & Associates and PicRights send a high volume of demand letters, and stock agencies like Getty use perceptual-hash crawling (PicScout) to find their images across the web. A CCB claim is a more formal step than a demand letter, and it comes with real deadlines.

How this connects to demand letters and stock claims

Most businesses meet copyright enforcement long before a CCB claim, usually through a demand letter. A photographer or agency, or a firm acting for them, sends a letter alleging you used a licensed image without permission and asks for a settlement. The CCB is one of the escalation paths available if you ignore or reject that letter.

If you have already received a letter, our Getty Images demand letter guide walks through how those letters work and how to respond. If your situation involves stock photos specifically, what to know about stock photo copyright claims covers how licensing gaps turn into claims in the first place.

The common thread is this: enforcement usually starts with an image you thought was fine to use. AI-generated images, images pulled from Google, screenshots, and stock photos with expired or wrong-scope licenses are the usual culprits.

How to reduce your exposure before a claim arrives

The best time to deal with a copyright problem is before anyone sends you anything. The images already live on your site, so you can audit them now.

A practical checklist:

• Inventory every image you did not create yourself. Stock, AI-generated, and downloaded images are the higher-risk categories.
• Confirm you have a license that matches the use. A license for social media does not always cover a commercial web page, and free-tier stock often has restrictions.
• Check images for stock-agency watermarks and catalog matches, including faint or tiled watermarks that are easy to miss by eye.
• Look at metadata and source signals to see where an image likely came from.

Doing this by hand across a whole website is slow, and it is the job PixGuard is built for. To start, check one page on your site free: enter a page URL and we check the 3 largest images on that page, up to 3 times a day. Uploads and 30 image scans need a free account. Account scans read EXIF, IPTC and XMP copyright fields, look for watermark text and logos from 7 major stock agencies, compare each image against a database of reference image fingerprints and estimate whether it was AI-generated. Each image gets a risk score from 0 to 100 with the reasons behind it, so you can see which images to review first.

To be clear about what the tool does and does not do: it flags images for review and estimates copyright risk. It does not confirm infringement, and it is not legal advice. Think of it as a smoke detector that tells you where to look, not a verdict.

Frequently asked questions

Is the Copyright Claims Board a real court?

The CCB is not a traditional court, but it is an official tribunal inside the US Copyright Office created by the CASE Act of 2020. Its determinations are legally binding on the parties and can be enforced through federal district court, so treating a CCB claim as informal or ignorable is a mistake.

How much can the CCB award against me?

Damages at the CCB are capped at $30,000 total per case, and statutory damages at $15,000 per work, or $7,500 per work and $15,000 in total if the work was not registered in time (17 U.S.C. 1504(e)(1)). That is far lower than US federal court, where statutory damages can reach $150,000 per work for willful infringement under 17 U.S.C. 504(c). The lower cap is one reason claimants use the CCB for smaller disputes.

Can I refuse to take part in a CCB case?

Yes. The CCB is voluntary, so you can opt out within the limited window after you are served. Opting out ends the CCB proceeding and forces the claimant to go to federal court if they want to continue. Many small claims stop there, but you must act within the deadline or you lose the option.

What happens if I ignore a CCB notice?

If you neither opt out nor participate, the CCB can enter a default determination against you. That decision is made without your defense and is enforceable, including through a federal court judgment. Ignoring the notice is the worst outcome, because it removes your ability to opt out and to defend yourself.

Do I need a lawyer for the CCB?

The CCB was specifically designed to be usable without a lawyer, and its filing costs are lower than federal litigation. For a small claim you may choose to represent yourself. That said, if the amount at stake is significant or the facts are complicated, getting advice from a copyright attorney is sensible. Nothing here is legal advice.

The takeaway

The Copyright Claims Board lowered the barrier for anyone to bring a copyright claim against a small business. Claims are cheaper to file, capped in damages, and handled online. Your strongest protections are your opt-out right and your deadlines, and both of those disappear the moment you decide a real notice is not worth answering.

The practical move is to find your risky images early. A copyright risk scan shows which images on your site raise stock, AI, or watermark flags, so you can license, replace, or remove them on your own timeline instead of someone else's.