DMCA Infringement Violation - Do you know of any successful court case

Looking for court case references for stolen content

[maximillianos]

Hello!

I'm in the process of having an attorney draft a letter to a business that has copied/scraped over 10,000 pages of my content.

I wanted to reference some past court settlements/judgements where the infringing site was found to be guilty and had to pay damages.

Does anyone know of any such cases?

Thanks for any help!

[jbinbpt]

If your lawyer does not know any, find a lawyer that knows about these things. It will save you money in the long run.

[maximillianos]

Thanks. I found a guy on a legal question site that seems to know his stuff. I may inquire in his rates/availability.

The more I learn about this DMCA stuff the less confident I am in the system protecting my content.

Sounds like if you don't have a registered copyright, you can't even go to court.

I'm betting registering 30,000 pages of content isn't going to be cheap...

[jtara]

I'm betting registering 30,000 pages of content isn't going to be cheap...

In the U.S., the cost is the same ($45 for a paper application, $35 online), regardless of the size of the work. You don't pay by the page.

Copyright Registration for Online Works [copyright.gov] (Copyright.gov)

You send in a CD containing the entire site, plus 5 representative pages in hard-copy.

One gotcha - the copyright registration is limited to the content of the work as received - not future modifications. So, for continuing protection of your site, you need to periodically re-register it.

[Beagle]

Sounds like if you don't have a registered copyright, you can't even go to court.

You can, although the bar's higher and your settlement might be smaller without one. Without a registered copyright, you can recover only your financial losses caused by the copyright infringement. You need a registered copyright to receive punitive damages. (In the U.S., the last time I checked. Since I Am Not A Lawyer, I don't always keep up.)

It's true, though, that most civil cases (in most kinds of civil cases - not just copyright infringement) are settled before they reach court. Probably better for the parties involved, in general, but not so good for coming up with case law, since out-of-court settlements don't have the legal clout that a trial outcome does. But hopefully you've now found an attorney who knows the specific territory.

[maximillianos]

Thanks for the info! I talked to a lawyer, he quoted me $150 for registering the copyright for my site. I'm guessing I have to do the legwork to get the site on a CD and he just handles the paperwork.

Seems reasonable since I have no clue what I am doing.

What do you guys think?

[jbinbpt]

Does not seem like a bad deal. If you want to include additional content, is it another $150.00?

[maximillianos]

Not sure about the re-filing price. I hope it would be cheaper since it would be basically the same thing only submitting a new CD (mostly work for me).

Not sure how frequent I would need to do it. I might be comfortable with every 3 months or so.