Small Claims and you: a brief guide to using the legal system to resolve copyright disputes

#Disclaimers
I am not a lawyer. This is not legal advice. Do your own research first, I'm just an autist with way too much time on my hands.

#What is small claims court?
Small claims was made to handle relatively minor disputes that would otherwise be too costly to pursue for plaintiffs and too numerous and petty for full civil court to want to handle. This is primarily for open-and-shut contract disputes - eg, you pay someone $500 to do something, they don't do it, so you pursue legal action to get compensated for damages.

#Why small claims?
The big downside is that there's a statutory limit to how much you can pursue, typically $10,000. On the upside, small claims uses different rules designed to make it easier and cheaper to use the legal system. Typically, the defendent cannot have a lawyer present (unless you're like, suing a lawyer personally or a law firm.) You also don't need a lawyer. Filing and service fees are low. And the clerks at the courthouse can answer procedural questions like "how do I file a suit", because it's designed to not need lots of legal training to be used.

#Torts
You can't just say that people owe you money and get taken seriously. There has to be a legal reason you are owe damages - a tort.

In this case, you are probably suing for two related claims: interference with contract (or economic advantage), and defamation. I'll talk about these separately:

##Tortious interference (California)

https://www.justia.com/trials-litigation/docs/caci/2200/2201/ , or possibly https://www.justia.com/trials-litigation/docs/caci/2200/2202/

>1. That there was a contract between [name of plaintiff] and [name of third party];
>2. That [name of defendant] knew of the contract;
>3. That [name of defendant]’s conduct prevented performance or made performance more expensive or difficult;
>4. That [name of defendant] [intended to disrupt the performance of this contract/ [or] knew that disruption of performance was certain or substantially certain to occur];
>5. That [name of plaintiff] was harmed; and
>6. That [name of defendant]’s conduct was a substantial factor in causing [name of plaintiff]’s harm.

You'll want to show facts that prove each of these points. You have a contract with YouTube (terms of service) as a content creator. The defendant knows about this because you upload stuff to YouTube and everyone who does so has such a contract with YouTube. The conduct interfered with the service via any copyright strikes, your time spent dealing with the dispute, diverted advertising revenue, and anything else you can document. It's a copyright claim, the defendant should know that it disrupt your relationship with YouTube. Harms are losses from advertising revenue and any copyright strikes in your account. It's a substantial factor in causing the harm because YouTube told you that their conduct with the copyright dispute caused this.

##Defamation

https://www.justia.com/trials-litigation/docs/caci/1700/1705/

>1. That [name of defendant] made [one or more of] the statement(s) to [a person/persons] other than [name of plaintiff];
>2. That [this person/these people] reasonably understood that the statement(s) [was/were] about [name of plaintiff];
>3. That because of the facts and circumstances known to the [listener(s)/reader(s)] of the statement(s), [it/they] tended to injure [name of plaintiff] in [his/her] occupation [or to expose[him/her] to hatred, contempt, ridicule, or shame] [or to discourage others from associating or dealing with [him/her]];
>4. That [name of defendant] failed to use reasonable care to determine the truth or falsity of the statement(s);
>5. That [name of plaintiff] suffered harm to [his/her] property, business, profession, or occupation [including money spent as a result of the statement(s)]; and
>6. That the statement(s) [was/were] a substantial factor in causing [name of plaintiff]’s harm.

You can also show facts to fit all of these pieces. The statement is that you uploaded work that t