jecasc - 9:32 pm on Feb 24, 2012 (gmt 0)

Probably hard to calculate any damages or how much they earned from the website.

Where I live the damages are calculated by what is called "license analogy". The law states that in cases like this you are entitled to the amount it would have cost the company to get a license for similar content, duplicated by the factor two. Same goes for use of images without a license agreement. The theoretical license fee depends on the quality of the content or image and how long it has been used and is calculated by the market price. For five years of use this would be quite an amount. If you calculate only 10 EUR for a page/month, multiplied by two - this would be 1200 EUR/page.

However it depends on where you live and where the infringer lives.

I'd consult with a lawyer to check what you would be entitled to and ask about risks and the costs for legal action.

You can't make an informed decision if you do not know what you would get, what it could cost and how risky it would be.

Here is some basic information about compensation in cases of copyright infringment in different jurisdictions:
[thefreelibrary.com...]

It could be unintentional. The other website owner could have given them permission to use the content. It's hard to know who is the copyright owner or if it is copyrighted.The site complied with DMCA takedown notice. They are protected by the "Safe Harbor" provision. You will be wasting your time and money trying to pursue this.

In cases of copyright infringment a permission from someone who is not authorized to give permission is worth: Zero. And they are not protected by anything. You are only protected to a certain extent if a third party posts content on your website. For example if you run a blog and somone posts a newspaper article in the comments section you are not liable if you take down the content immediatly after being notified. But not if you post the content yourself.