As I wrote back in June, the Copyright Alternative in Small-Claims Enforcement (CASE) Act, which had been introduced in the 115th Congress, was reintroduced on May 1st of this year as H.R. 4246. On October 22, it passed the House on a vote of 410-6. It now goes on to the Senate, where companion bill S. 1273 awaits a floor vote (it was reported out of the Judiciary Committee on September 12, 2019).
Discussed more fully in Chapter 6 of The Unrealized Promise of the Next Great Copyright Act, the CASE Act calls for the establishment of a tribunal within the Copyright Office to adjudicate relatively minor copyright infringement claims. The procedure is intended to provide alternative path to adjudication for small, independent creative professionals who typically do not have the resources to bring full-fledged federal infringement litigation. Damages would be capped at $15,000 per claim (and $30,000 per total). The streamlined adjudicatory process would be entirely voluntary — plaintiffs would remain free to file infringement actions in feral district court, just as they do now, and defendants may opt out, effectively requiring the plaintiff to bring the action in federal district court.