Seems like a basic apology and taking down their content would solve everything. Legally they can't bother you, and it gives you piece of mind

best of luck my friend

Originally Posted by flashgordon88

Hey guys,

so I have been reading a lot about autoblogs/SEO/wordpress lately. I decided to start my own autoblog and it went well after a month, getting around 1 buck a day. I decided to make more.

However, I received a letter yesterday from a laywer for company X, which states that I have posted their images and articles, which are copyright protected, on my website, which is true.

I am still a little bit shocked, I have never been in this type of situation before. I have not talked to a laywer yet. The fees for the laywer that I have to pay is 1300€, which is about 1800 USD.

I am not too sure what to do now, but I'll definitely consult a lawyer on monday.

Just my heads to you guys. Be careful when you set your plugin to autopost from certain websites. Or use a plugin that rewrites articles!

btw FML

If I got such a letter (it's most likely a cease and desist), I'd take their pictures down and stop running that blog. You could then discuss with them through their lawyer that this was accidental, you have been compliant with their copy right claim and have taken measures to prevent it from happening again.

Wow,

OP, there are so many "kids" and freedom fighters responding to you.
While I agree with the spirit and the opinions of the members here I would sugest you to ignore the "dog poop" and "fight for your rights".

This could be a very serious legal matter and could be nothing.

Depending on what country you are in (im in USA) you are not i guess since you wrote Euro. I had a case of copy right infringement 3 years ago. I was sued by a company from AZ for selling copy some bell pendants. I was sued for 5 different items, where if I remember correct if convicted the damages they could get are 50K per item. SO they could get a judgment against me for a whooping $250k.
I had to take a copy right lawyer that was charging only $700/h and he had to do his d/d and then wrote a letter. The letter said this is BS (in nice word) and explained why. The letter said also if you loose in court (and you probably loose) we (me and the lawyer) will counter sue for damages and advised them to drop the case.

Happy ending was they did drop the case.
Happy ending for my lawyer he got me for $19,500 for writing a letter.
Conclusion is once you are sued you are bound to Loose.
I did nothing wrong and my lawyer proved it. I was still out of $19.5K dollars of my money to prove my self right.
God bless America

Call them first.
Try to work it out.
Let them know that you have no money.
There is nothing to get from you.
Explain (nicely) that you are a waste of time (financially to them).
IF you do not reside in the same country as the lawyer and his client you are in better shape. In order to sue in foreign country it will cost them a lot more then to sue you locally. If there is no real money behind you they probably will not put the effort and expanse.

If it goes really bad I would advise you to take the most "Known" lawyer in town, Yes the expansive one. The reason for this is simple. These lawyers know each other, If you take a very good lawyer the other lawyer will know his name and will be mo inclined to go into court. If they know a nasty and expensive battle is ahead of them they will think twice. There is a risk in Law suite if you loose in many cases the loosing party needs to pay the other party legal expanses! they know that! the bigger the canon you bring the bigger the chance they will not go to war. (yes in my case it still cost me an arm and a leg )

Good luck

Tell the Lawyer to go back to school. Do NOT contact a lawyer. These clowns are the lowest form of life PERIOD! Their age old trick is to craft a document designed to scare you into hiring your own lawyer. They'll go have a beer together and figure out what you "blue line" is. That is the line where if they take another dollar, you'll turn blue!

Mathew Broderick said it best in the movie WAR GAMES in 1983. The only sensible move is to NOT PLAY.

In order to successfully sue you, they have to prove damages. You could never be successful in determining this figure. If you write back and tell this scumbag that you were unaware that the graphic was copyrighted and that you have taken it down, that will be the end of it. He cannot afford to come after you. His chances of winning the case are marginal at best. It would cost him weeks of his time and he would have no chance of collecting. Tell him you are just coming out of bankruptcy and once you find a job, you'll be more careful where you get your graphics.

Also, get photoshop and get good at it. If you change the graphic 20% then now judge could say that the picture is "substantially the same" - which is the test for copyright violation.

And if you really want to rattle his cage, tell him you were thinking of building a WP Blog for the niche market of lawyers IN HIS NEIGHBORHOOD! Tell him it will be a directory of sorts. Rank him at the bottom, and get your blog to Page one of google. It only takes about two weeks these days if you have the right plugins.

nuff...said...

Originally Posted by flashgordon88

Hey guys,

so I have been reading a lot about autoblogs/SEO/wordpress lately. I decided to start my own autoblog and it went well after a month, getting around 1 buck a day. I decided to make more.

However, I received a letter yesterday from a laywer for company X, which states that I have posted their images and articles, which are copyright protected, on my website, which is true.

I am still a little bit shocked, I have never been in this type of situation before. I have not talked to a laywer yet. The fees for the laywer that I have to pay is 1300€, which is about 1800 USD.

I am not too sure what to do now, but I'll definitely consult a lawyer on monday.

Just my heads to you guys. Be careful when you set your plugin to autopost from certain websites. Or use a plugin that rewrites articles!

btw FML

Just deleted the copyright article quickly and don't respond back to them.

good luck, I'm sure if you simply reply to the case then they'd be fine about it?

Use offshore hosting and try to stay off the radar.

As for your current issue the claim is not serious and I am sure the lawyer will back down once you agree to take the infringed content off of your site.

good luck

Nice post!

just remove it and don't respond. If you get another notice then maybe figure something out but never, NEVER, admit guilt.

Same thing happened to a friend and he got through it with the help of a lawyer

That sucks, what are the images you borrowed?

Just say "I is sorry"

if they didnt send you a cease and desist letter to remove the copyrighted material they cant do anything...

Originally Posted by 530112

if they didnt send you a cease and desist letter to remove the copyrighted material they cant do anything...

That's what I thought and was thinking while reading through this thread.

Since this happened a few months back have you heard of anything else since then? Just guessing that once it was removed they haven't had any contact with you. It's truly amazing the greed of people and companies sometimes.

Be strong, this too shall pass

$1,800 for a 3 min email is a bit odd.

As far as I know, if you remove their content, or give them credit for it, they can't sue you for copyright, as they are posting the information on a public venue.

You should just give them credit, and be done.

If the company is that hard up for money, they will want you to pay the $1,800 so they can bank off of it. I can't see them investing more than a hour into getting your information, writing out a letter, and mailing it.

Also, if you are not in the same country as them, i wouldn't worry about it.

Dude idk where are you from but in USA and Mexico that lawyer can suck your dick while you laugh in his DMCA complaint. Of course if you are a nice dude you can erase the copyrighted content but the worst case scenario is that your hosting company will shut your down(make a backup).
Next time use off-shore hosting and namecheap to avoid that any person can contact you without going trough those companies first (usually they tell you to erase that shit and move on).
And remember, the lawyer that you are going to hire will tell you that you do need him, NEVER ask a salesman if you need his service...

Easiest is to not repond. Especially if they don't send the letters by signature confirmation. Or don't sign for any letters requesting confirmation.

I agree. Just ignore them for now.

I bet they have been contacting various bloggers and trying to get them pay lawyers fees...
Thats just tactics.

If they contact 100 bloggers and 10 of them pay: its a win win situations for the lawayers anyway.

ignore the letter, destory the evidence and start a new, better, blog

Never ignore a potential lawsuit you should just get a hold of the attorney and let them know you meant no harm and you will redirect your blog to their website if they would like. Advise them that you have not made any money from the traffic. A dollar a day is no money Anyway good luck.

What about fansites, etc. How do they get away with using screenshots of videogames on their sites? Is that not copyright also?

I had an inadvertent copyright infringement situation and was contacted by the publisher. I immediately took down the material that was causing the problem, apologized profusely, and offered to give them all the profit I had made from the product (which wasn't very much at that point). They accepted my apology, said not to bother sending any money, and I moved on. It seems that the entity suing you couldn't get more in damages than your earnings anyway, at least in some jurisdictions. If you write them a nice letter saying that it was a mistake and your profit was minimal, and apologizing, perhaps they will let you off the hook.

was in a similar situation..take the content down asap and ignore the letter

Hi All

Someone is going to sue another person for an image used
Well first thing - is that image really copy write?
Second - They should first ask the concerned admin of the website who has used the copywrite pics to be removed - 3 warnings should be given first then if those pics are not removed send a letter with a charge for violation

Funniest thing is - those guys first should sue search engines which shows up their copy write pics when searched for a term in the image section \o/

What you should do is remove that pic that is used or any content (contents are not possible as you would be caught in plagiarism ), then wait if still they ponder you then send them a mail back stating that those pics they are talking about is not at all used by you, if they still ponder you then ask your lawyer to start harassing them by sending them a letter stating that they are disturbing the goodwill of you by sending such threating email

For you my friend - Take a chill pill and do what you are doing but again just a suggestion to you and to all who are using AUTO BLOG - this is not gonna help much to you for ranking always follow the WHITE HAT METHOD thou it is time consuming but yet that is the right way

Just read this whole thread. Great post for us noobs to learn from.

btw, what ever happened to the OP seems like months since hes responded..uh oh?

wow you are very unlucky, hope everything goes well.

just curious how did this turn out for OP?

It is easy, just remove the copyrighted content and you are done.