Professor Wins Default Judgement Against Essay Mill

Last week, the Copyright Claims Board (CCB) handed down a default judgement in favor of Benjamin Bronner, a faculty member in the George Washington University School of Business.

At the university, Bronner teaches undergraduate courses on various topics, including business ethics and public policy. However, in early 2022, he discovered that one of his prompts was being sold on the essay mill website EssayZoo. He approached the site to get the paper removed, but was initially rebuffed with claims that the site doesn’t host infringing content.

Though EssayZoo did eventually remove the essay, that didn’t stop Bronner from moving forward with his claims against the site. He filed the claim with the CCB in June 2022 and, after no response from EssayZoo in the nearly 18 months since, the board has handed down its final judgement, a default award of $1,200 in favor of Bronner.

But, while that brings an end to the case, it doesn’t necessarily bring an end to the story. There are still serious questions about if and how Bronner can enforce his judgement, and what purpose the case may have served in the long term.

As such, it’s worth taking one more look at this case, its history and what it means for both the CCB as an institution and the ongoing fight against essay mill websites.

A Brief History of the Case

Bronner filed his initial claim on June 16, 2022. At the time, the CCB was brand new, having only been open for about two weeks. In fact, Bronner’s case was only the 12th filed with the CCB ever.

The allegations themselves were fairly simple, as we talked about shortly after the case was filed. Bronner alleged that, in February 2022, he discovered that a series of instructions and paper prompts that he created for his students were being sold on EssayZoo for $4.32.

Bronner then says he reached out to EssayZoo to get the content removed, but they initially refused. They did eventually remove the document in March 2022, after the document had been available for nearly a year and over a month after initial notification.

This prompted Bronner to file the case with the CCB. The CCB quickly approved the case and directed Bronner to serve the needed paperwork to EssayZoo. 

However, that was where the case hit its first hurdle. As we discussed in September, the address that EssayZoo listed on its site was fake and Bronner had no confirmed physical address to serve the paperwork to.

As such, Bronner opted for a different route, service via publication. This is where process service is provided not by directly delivering the papers, but publishing announcements in relevant newspapers and publications to notify the respondent of the case. 

The CCB accepted this service and the case moved forward. However, EssayZoo never responded to the case, which moved forward without them and began to steam toward a default judgement.

In that default judgement, the CCB found that EssayZoo did not have a meritorious defense but also found that Bronner had not timely registered his work. That meant that his potential damages were capped at $7,500.

However, the board also noted that, typically, statutory damages have some relationship to actual damages and that, in this case, there was no proof of significant profit earned by EssayZoo or significant harm to Bronner’s work. 

Still, the board sought to discourage both EssayZoo and their partners from committing similar infringements, ruling that, “On balance, the damages awarded should exceed the $750 minimum of the statutory range.” Therefore, they awarded $1,200 in damages. 

This is the final determination of the board, bringing the case to a close. However, some serious questions remain, including whether Bronner will ever see the judgement amount. 

Moving Forward

So where does Bronner go from here? That is a surprisingly difficult question. 

The CCB itself doesn’t have a mechanism to force EssayZoo to pay the amount in damages. However, Bronner can file a petition with a federal court and secure payment that way. 

Unfortunately, that may be difficult. 

That’s because the only known address for EssayZoo is fake. It is fully unclear what assets the company may have, where those assets are located and how they can be seized to force payment.

While there are ways and techniques to learn this information, such as subpoenaing Cloudflare, who provides the content delivery network for the site, such approaches cost money, and it’s likely that the cost of pursuing the judgement could exceed any damages that are likely to be collected.

Also, while not relevant in this case, it’s also worth noting that the CCB cannot grant injunctive relief. This means that, if EssayZoo hadn’t removed the article, this ruling would not be able to force them to do so. 

In short, though Bronner clearly won the case and, in theory, is owed some $1,200 in damages, it’s very likely that he’ll never see those damages. Furthermore, if he does, he may spend more pursuing them than he could ever hope to get back.

Bottom Line

The case stood out because it was unusual for the CCB at the time it was filed and now, nearly 18 months later, it’s still an outlier. Simply put, this is not the type of case that is most commonly before the CCB.

And that is likely for the best.

The CCB works best when it’s a tool for a claimant and a respondent to resolve a dispute over an alleged copyright infringement. In that regard, it’s helpful to think of it less as a court of law and more like arbitration. 

When both sides cooperate in the process, they can resolve the dispute more cheaply and with lower risk. This can be either through a settlement that’s aided by the process, or through a final judgement from the board.

It’s less clear how useful the CCB is for forcing uncooperative respondents to change their behavior or pay damages. Not only can they simply opt out of the process, but enforcing a judgement against an uncooperative participant will be difficult and will likely require going through federal court.

However, going through federal court is precisely what the CCB was supposed to help claimants and respondents avoid. While it is cheaper and easier to enforce an existing judgement than to obtain one in federal court, the cost is often still significant, especially when compared to the awarded amount.

In short, this case highlights both what the CCB is best at and what its limitations are. From a practical standpoint, this type of judgement is going to be very difficult to do anything with, at least without risking losing money.

While Bronner’s victory is well-deserved and well-earned, it’s unclear how it will eventually help him or harm EssayZoo. Though it’s possible he has a goal in mind that I am not aware of, if the goal is to collect damages, it’s difficult to see how he will effectively achieve that.