Comments on: What Would You Do If Someone Challenged Your Copyright?

By: andreas wedin

andreas wedin — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 06:15:27 +0000

I would probably be a bit grumpy and irritated. But I don’t believe I have any copyright and don’t claim to.

By: Iain

Iain — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 00:01:07 +0000

Justin – it depends. If you win, you often get a costs order against the other side, who has then has to pay your costs and theirs. But not always – and it does depend on whether or not the other side has costs to pay.

If you make a living based on what you create, it really pays to have intellectual property insurance IMHO. That means your legal costs are covered in situations like this, definitely worth the peace of mind.

I’m glad to hear this has been resolved.

By: Fox

Fox — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 14:01:09 +0000

This is one problem many people can avoid with insurance. A simple general liabiliy policy will pay to defend those claims if you’re legitimate. If you’re going to run a business online you should treat it like a real business and protect it. Unfortunately, most don’t think about it until it’s too late. This is a very unfortunate and sad reality.

There’s a good book called “Do as I say. Not as I did.”(if I remember correctly) that outlines dozens of stories (mistakes) business people made for us to learn from. One is very similar to John’s.

By: Justin King

Justin King — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 04:35:41 +0000

Wow, I can’t imagine what it would feel like to be in this situation.

A quick question about the legal fees: If you win the case are they returned?

By: Miserere

Miserere — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 22:19:53 +0000

John says he’s reached an agreement with these AHs:

http://www.johntunger.com/legal-defense-fund.html

I suppose that’s a somewhat happy ending to this story, which nevertheless sickened me. And we hear/read about so many of them…

By: George

George — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 20:50:11 +0000

Isn’t that how the legal system works? Whoever has the most money can draw out the process until the other settles.

I guess the best thing we can do is consult a lawyer now and protect ourselves as much as possible.

By: Dave Doolin

Dave Doolin — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 19:30:02 +0000

I don’t know what I would do.

I predicted this would happen back in May 2009, when I had a blog post scraped and couldn’t get it removed.

Hint: never put “SEO” in your blog post title.

Check this out for related issues: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MathWorld

I remember when this first happened. It was a huge stink. But he signed the contract. So it didn’t matter that CRC was acting in demonstrably bad faith. Case of killing the goose what laid them golden eggs.

Our system needs overhauling very badly. It’s heavily skewed to favor the big players. My concern is that “SEO” will become so important that small players will completely drop off the SERPs. You can see this happening with the amount of spam served up already. No way I can spend as much $$$ as the big players. But I can write better quality content.

By: Stacey Cornelius

Stacey Cornelius — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 19:29:51 +0000

I wish I could say I’m surprised. There are people who are hired to troll trade shows with a cell phone to photograph the work of exhibitors. The images are then sent offshore to be made in factories at a fraction of the price (there was an article about it in Crafts Report magazine a couple of years ago).

The intention, of course, is to starve the artist out. David versus Goliath.

This kind of thing makes my blood boil. I’ve had low-rent competitors try to steal designs right in front of me. I can’t begin to imagine how horrible it would be to see something mass-produced, and to have the thief try to claim my work as their own on top of it.

I’m relieved to see there was a settlement.