Legal Question in Intellectual Property in North Carolina
webmaster being sued over site content
I have ran an anon. imageboard site for over a year now. There is no registration required so any person can upload only images and text at their will.
An artist is suing me over various copyrighted images of his that were posted to my site (by users, not myself.) We have recieved about a dozen DMCAs from him over the course of the last year, and I only recently decided to file a counterDMCA. With that, they file for a lawsuit and I'm in a bit of a pinch.
They live in North Carolina and I live in Ohio. Somehow they have the ability to call me to court there. I have neither the transportation nor the money required to get there. Aside from that, his claims are more than outrageous.
In his complaint they state that we have caused him lots of monetary damage. They then also claim that calculating the loss is IMPOSSIBLE. 1 + 1 = there is no loss to calculate
They have tossed on a second charge as well: Violation of the Federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Somehow they believe that since SOMEONE posted his artwork that we have ''intentionally and knowingly accessed Plaintiff's protected computer system.'' They are saying we hacked them and stole the images.
I don't know what to do.. at all. I have 2 weeks to respond to the summons
1 Answer from Attorneys
Re: webmaster being sued over site content
You have real and true problems, and need to get to an attorney. There are a wealth of cases against file sharing services such as Napster that have held servers liable for copyright infringement, where the servers were found liable as a contributory infringers. It is very likely that you would be held responsible for infringement using the rational of these cases.
You need to answer the complaint. This must be done by counsel, it is too complicated to be handled on your own. My only other suggestion is that you immediately contact counsel for plaintiff and see what it would take to settle the matter. If withdrawing the picture will make him happy, do it. If closing the site will make him happy, do it. If paying a small amount of money is called for, do it. What you will pay your attorney in what is most likely a lost cause will far outweigh a small amount now. And, under the Copyright Act, you could, and probably will, be responsible for the plaintiff's attorney fees in the end anyways.
The issue here is not the amount of damage that the artist may have (or have not) suffered. The artist owns the work and has the right to say how it will be used. Copyrights are property just like your house. You wouldn't want to come home and find a stranger camped out on your couch. Artist's have the right to have their property treated with the same respect.
Furthermore, there is a provision of the Copyright Act that allows for a judge to decide what the amount of damages are. This is called statutory damages, and can be imposed when actual damages are too speculative. If the infringement is willful, which your actions probably are given the notice you recieved, a court could set the damages award as high as $150,000.
Do not ignore this problem. It is serious. If you do not treat it as such, you will be in more trouble than you already are.
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