5:01 pm
We started the day meeting with the Small Business Administration. This is the federal administration that passes regulations to protection small businesses, provides guidance on best practices, and in some cases, provides loans to make sure small businesses can get started or stay afloat. This was a great meeting for our Board to attend, since each and everyone one of them is a small business owner, just like PPA's 30,000+ members.

We made it a point to meet with this Administration, because if the President, Vice President, or even Congressional Members have any questions regarding a bill that deals with Small Business they are consulted. During this meeting, we took a deep dive into the CASE Act and how it would benefit Small Creators on so many levels. The office stated that the bill made sense, and would be willing to provide information to necessary parties when needed. This is slightly different than when we meet with other offices since when meeting with Congressional offices we are trying to convince them to support our bill. However, since this is a federal administration, they cannot take a stand on bills that are in front of Congress, but they can provide information. By taking time to meet with the Small Business administration, we wanted to make sure they had the right information if they were ever tapped on.

After meeting with Small Business Administration, we met with the Intellectual Property Staffer for Vice President Pence’s Office. This meeting was a real treat! PPA’s Advocacy team, along with the Board of Directors, got to meet in the conference room where Vice President Pence swears in executive-appointed positions, such as ambassadors, secretaries, and other important dignitaries, and even better, it was right next door to the White House! As awesome as the location of our meeting was, we were there for a very importance purpose. The purpose of this meeting was to inform the Administration of upcoming our Copyright legislation and see what else we could do to ensure that this bill gets through, especially since the current Administration is very positive to intellectual property.

After discussing H.R. 3945 with Vice President’s staffer, we shifted gears a little bit and went to a Copyright Alliance meeting. Copyright Alliance is an association that PPA is a member of, whose goal is to unite all members of the copyright world, from the biggest of the biggest to the tiniest of the tiniest! During this meeting, we got a status update on the Small Claims bill. As of this writing, the bill is being looked over for language, clarity, and constitutionality. Once this is completed. the text of the bill will be circulated to the necessary stakeholders, including PPA. Once we all sign off, we will have the final language of the bill, and are hoping that it will be marked up soon.

After such an exciting day, we are ready to go home! We are so happy that the Board of Directors could join us during our D.C. trips and help us articulate how important this bill is to all photographers and creative artists! While we get ready to head to the airport, don’t forget to continue to send your Representative an email on why Small Claims is so necessary! Remember they need to hear from you a couple of times a week! PPA.com/SmallClaims