Imagine every post online came with a bounty of up to $150,000 paid to anyone who finds it violates opaque government rules—all out of the pocket of the platform. It's not a fantasy, it’s close to how U.S. copyright’s broken statutory damages regime actually works. Massive, unpredictable damages awards for copyright infringement are the fuel that drives overzealous or downright abusive takedowns of creative material. Many reforms are possible, and fixing fair use would make many of the other problems in copyright law more easily solvable, and create a fairer system for creators and users alike.