Legal Question in Intellectual Property in Indiana

Hello, my name is Stephanie Miller and I am writing because I have a question when it comes to copyright infringement and fraud. This is what happened. About 2 weeks ago, I posted lenses on Squidoo that contained a lot of my hard work. I have worked for months making blogs on how to make money with what is called get paid to sites. I waited months because I had to receive my proofs of payments in the mail, which were checks. I then edited out my last name, check numbers and all of that for security reasons so then I could post them on my blogs to show people I have actually been paid from these get paid to websites. I posted my blogs on Squidoo, to have them featured almost automatically. Which means, they thought my blogs were good enough to be featured and they know that these blogs were my own personal work because there was no other blogs like that on Squidoo.

I then started promoting my blog by promoting on a social networking site called "PeopleString" PeopleString is a free social site that people can get on, and it actually pays you to do things online and is good for promoting business. I started promoting on PeopleString, I made groups, sent messages, made friends started getting traffic to my blogs. I made groups on PeopleString because I noticed there was no other groups with what I was offering, so I made the groups and sent out invites and people started to join. I get on one day to notice I received a group invite from a man on my buddy list named "Alex Chenko" I noticed his group name was the same as mine, so I take a look at it and noticed he had copied every single word from my blogs, word for word. That is not what I am upset about though, I read his group to see he had made a blog on a website called http://lgnprosperity.com/

He had taken every single bit of my work, word for word and he even posted MY check with MY name on it and is using it as HIS proof of payment? Now, correct me if I am wrong, that is considered fraud? I never gave him permission to do so. I have tried contacting him in a professional manner, just to have him ignore my messages. I have contacted http://lgnprosperity.com/ and they have not responded. I have contacted PeopleString and they have not responded. I am un-sure what the laws are when it comes to this sort of thing, but him using MY check on HIS blog has got to be against the law. What about copyright infringement? What kind of protection do I have considering my blogs are featured on Squidoo?

I will give you the proof, this is my blog/lens on Squidoo. I created this about 2 weeks ago, and it was featured almost automatically after I finished it.

http://www.squidoo.com/moneynow2

Now, this is the blog this man Alex Chenko created:

http://lgnprosperity1.webs.com/

As you can see, the information is identical and not only that MY check is on HIS blog.

I need advice on what steps I need to take in order to sue this man and what the laws are for this sort of thing. The website he is on is not taking the blog down, and using my check on his blog is just not right!

Thank you for your time.

Stephanie Miller

E-mail: [email protected]


Asked on 4/20/10, 8:55 am

1 Answer from Attorneys
Bruce Burdick Burdick Law Firm

Back up a second, Stephanie.

Before you sue this Alan Chenko, or anyone else, for copyright infringement you need to have a copyright registration or an application for such registration at the Copyright Office. I am guessing you have not done that yet.

Copyright law is federal law administered by the Library of Congress ("Copyright Office") pursuant to Federal law (17 USC ) passed by Congress under authority of the US Constitution (Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8 "To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries") and exclusive original jurisdiction lies in the US District Courts. Under current law, the US District Courts have no jurisdiction unless you have availed yourself of US law, specifically the Copyright Act by at least filing an application for registration.

So, the first step for you is to apply for a copyright registration on your blog. Then you could sue for an injunction and damages. Once you have the registration, you would also, be entitled (prospectively, not retroactively) to statutory damages, which can be huge and if the infringement is willful even treble damages and attorney fees.

So, consider this a lesson in the school of hard knocks. You would at most get an injunction forcing the take-down of this infringing blog page, and even that depends on the agreement you clicked on when signing up for Squidoo. Some of such agreements grant free copyright license to users to copy material. I do not know if Squidoo's agreement does such. Next time get a copyright registration promptly when posting something as valuable as your blog and actually read the user license agreement on a blog service before posting to it. In all probability you are SOL this time unless you want to spend a pile of money to take-down the offending copy. You have a case for copyright infringement, but not a worthwhile case. Still, if you really want to spend the attorney fees to obtain a take-down order, I call me and I can do it for you. I don't work for free.

You need the advice and counsel and representation of a good copyright lawyer so you have the appropriate protection for your creations and don't give up valuable rights in this manner in the future. Call me if you want such protection. A few bucks up front will prevent this problem or make it possible to put some serious hurt on people like Alex Chenko (more likely if he is in the USA than in some country that does not respect copyrights).

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Answered on 4/25/10, 12:53 pm


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