I was reminded by a client recently that what I do actually has changed (at least some of) my clients’ lives for the better. That was very meaningful for me. While of course I need to make a living, I do what I do to try to help creatives be successful (at least financially). When I hear that I have succeeded in helping, that makes me feel great.
For example, I helped fully-fund one client’s retirement accounts; for another, some serious and unexpected home repairs were much less a problem. I’ve had other clients, over the years, tell me I helped pay for vacations or their kids’ college funds. All sorts of things that simply made their lives a bit (or a lot) better.
To be sure, none of these were huge cases. I do not have any million-dollar awards or settlements…. not even close, to be honest. There have been some that have been larger, relatively speaking, but mostly my practice consists of handling what many people would see as “small” cases.
What do I mean by small? I did some math to figure that out. Most single-infringement, pre-litigation settlements in my practice lately (2024-2025) land between $7,500 to $12,0001. In the legal world, those are not big numbers. But for the artists I represent, they are not insignificant. Those numbers mean roughly $4,750 to $7,700 in the client’s pocket2. Per case. Most of my clients find multiple infringements that they ask me to pursue so, it is not at all unusual for a client to net (that is, after paying me), over a year, more than $30K or $40K. Sometimes, much more.
In other words, these cases, although what many people would call small, add up.
The key to these cases, almost always, is that the client has a timely registration. I’ve nagged about that for years, but look at the return! You can register multiple works (photos, 2-D art, blog posts, etc.) with one application and one fee (usually $55-$85, depending on the kind of works). If the work infringed is registered before the infringement at issue started3, then the minimum statutory damages (if the case is litigated) are $750 (up to $30K for non-willful). You also may be awarded attorney’s fees. That statutory (that is, written into the law) reality and the case law supporting the amounts make it possible for me to negotiate settlements like mentioned above, in many cases4.
And yet, I still have difficulty convincing some creators to register their copyrights and go after infringers. Like having that additional revenue isn’t worth the effort. That makes no sense to me. Artists of all stripes work hard to make their work (even when they feel it is easy themselves); why let someone rip it off? It isn’t a compliment to have some business use your work–it is a way to exploit your talent and efforts for its own benefit. As long as we live in a capitalistic society, you will need to make money and your work is valuable. The companies that use your work know that–they chose your work to make money… for themselves. By pursuing infringers you are not begging but rather standing up for yourself, your work, your talent, your own business.
So yeah, it feels great to know that I help people. But it is frustrating to know that I could be doing more for more of you. So please, whether you ever work with me or someone else, get off your butts, register your work, and stand up to the infringers.
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- REMEMBER! Previous results are not predictive of future results and each case is its own thing; just because someone got $10,000 for a case, for example, doesn’t mean you or anyone else will for a similar case. ↩︎
- The contingency fees (a percentage of the gross settlement or award) I charge are negotiated with each client prior to us working together. ↩︎
- Or if the registration is within 3 calendar months of first publication of the work. ↩︎
- Certainly not all cases, though. Some infringers will not negotiate, for example, meaning the case must be litigated or dropped by the client. ↩︎