Getting sued, want to share my thoughts!

$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.