Legal Question in Technology Law in Alabama

Notice of Copyright Infringment
Someone posts on their website a list of URLs that lead into a protected area on a well-known porn site. They get detected, hosting shut down, and a ''NOTICE of COPYRIGHT-TRADEMARK, or RIGHT of PUBLICITY INFRINGEMENT''.

This information is sent not only to the hosting provider, the APIC, but to the porn site and the local FBI.

What legally should be done by the defendant? Should they seek legal help, or is this merely a warning that could only lead up to a case, but needs no attention yet?

Asked on 6/23/03, 11:10 pm

2 Answers from Attorneys

Regina Mullen Legal Data Services, PLC

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Re: Notice of Copyright Infringment

Until you are actually sued, you don't need a lawyer, but you should keep PRISTINE copies of every page that you had to take down and all corespondence,-- that means no fiddling with the HTML, so that if will stand as evidence.

You don't want to provoke them,--porn sites are the highest profit margin sites on the web and you can expect that they will protect their wares aggressively. Just sit tight and if nothing further comes of it, then fair enough.

It's unclear whether you have the right to delete files from your computer at this point, because you are on notice that a suit might be filed against you. You are in a catch 22,--if you delete any pirated material, then you might be accused of destroying evidence, but if you leave it, then it's just evidence for the porn lawyers and any other software vendor who gets wind of it to come after you...Maybe I'll write an article on that one!

What the person did was definitely not kosher. Further, your ISP has a server-level record of all the traffic from your page to the porn site, so it's an easy matter to figure out how much damage the links-out actually did.

Answered on 6/25/03, 12:19 pm

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