What happened to having to show/prove monetary damages prior to filing suit? I don't get what the problem is, if anything reposting only helps the original author by spreading the word. i dont get it the people who read it for free are not the same people who would pay for it anyway. however by reading it for free, it may create enough interest in a few of the non payers to buy it later or buy more stuff later from the same source. I would argue that they owe me money for marketing their material at no cost to them. counter sue the bastards
It's part of the copyright law. If you have filed the article, book, image, etc. with the copyright office then you are entitled to specific damages regardless if any actual damages can be shown.
It doesnt matter what damages you have or dont have...anyone can file a lawsuit and then you have to defend against it. Even if you defend it "pro se" that is still time, anxiety and a lot of work that you have to do. There is court attendance and more paperwork then you can imagine. Even if you win, you dont really win. The best way to deal with it is to simply avoid the issue in the first place by not re-printing the entire article. However, even links can be construed as copyright violations. The only way ET could LIMIT liability is by: 1) Registering with the US copyright office 2) Adopt and communicate a copyright infringement policy to users 3) Immediately remove copyrighted material as soon as they know it exists. 4) Issue public warnings to the offending users and ban them for repeated offenses. Its important to make the warnings public so as to clearly demonstrate to all the site does not support the infringement. http://www.citmedialaw.org/legal-gu...f-against-copyright-claims-based-user-content The users on ET can individually be sued as well for posting copyrighted articles. They wont escape liability in any event. So how can you as a user limit your liability in this matter and help out ET? 1) Dont copy and paste entire articles from another site. 2. Copyright law provides for âfair useâ of portions of a copyrighted work. Copy no more than a SINGLE paragraph from the article to your post (2 or 3 sentences at most). 3. Provide a link to the article along with the name of website. For example: ww.xxx.yyy/zzz (The Lower Thumbsuck Daily News). 4. Provide, in your own words, a brief summary of the article AND your reasons for believing it will be of interest to ET members. 5. Photographs and other images are also copyrighted. "Hotlinking" of images (so that it appears in your message) from other sites should be avoided. If you wish to share an image, provide a clickable link to it. 6. Whenever you discuss a news article, always provide full attribution of the source (author, publication, date, etc.)
The biggest problem with these copyright lawsuits is that the U.S. system usually requires that both the defendant and the plaintiff pay their own legal expenses. It should be that the loser pays the legal expenses for both parties. That would stop a lot of the lawsuits in the U.S. but the trial lawyers make sure the Democrats won't allow such tort reform legislation to pass. To make it worse, many laws require the defendant to pay the plantiff's legal fees should the defendant lose. Bottom line is that a defendant almost always has to pay his own legal fees, win or lose. That makes plantiffs with deep pockets more likely to bring a lawsuit even if the claim is mostly frivilous. Most individuals don't have the resources or the temperment to defend against a lawsuit, right or wrong, and usually settle and pay the plantiff. Go to court and lose and paying the plantiff's legal fees can easily dwarf the original claim. This is easy money for the plantiff and his attorney and why the U.S. is the lawsuit capital of the world.
There are websites that readers and users are unable to copy the text for posting elsewhere etc. I suppose if you didn't want people reposting your article you might try that app.
im not sure if this is accurate. damages are speculative and the law requires exact accounting. can you point me toward these "specific damages" languages--otherwise I call this as total bullcrap.
BULLCRAP?? Do your own investigations! http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap5.html (c) Statutory Damages. â (1) Except as provided by clause (2) of this subsection, the copyright owner may elect, at any time before final judgment is rendered, to recover, instead of actual damages and profits, an award of statutory damages for all infringements involved in the action, with respect to any one work, for which any one infringer is liable individually, or for which any two or more infringers are liable jointly and severally, in a sum of not less than $750 or more than $30,000 as the court considers just. For the purposes of this subsection, all the parts of a compilation or derivative work constitute one work. (2) In a case where the copyright owner sustains the burden of proving, and the court finds, that infringement was committed willfully, the court in its discretion may increase the award of statutory damages to a sum of not more than $150,000. In a case where the infringer sustains the burden of proving, and the court finds, that such infringer was not aware and had no reason to believe that his or her acts constituted an infringement of copyright, the court in its discretion may reduce the award of statutory damages to a sum of not less than $200. The court shall remit statutory damages in any case where an infringer believed and had reasonable grounds for believing that his or her use of the copyrighted work was a fair use under section 107, if the infringer was: (i) an employee or agent of a nonprofit educational institution, library, or archives acting within the scope of his or her employment who, or such institution, library, or archives itself, which infringed by reproducing the work in copies or phonorecords; or (ii) a public broadcasting entity which or a person who, as a regular part of the nonprofit activities of a public broadcasting entity (as defined in subsection (g) of section 118) infringed by performing a published nondramatic literary work or by reproducing a transmission program embodying a performance of such a work.