Legal Question in Intellectual Property in Texas

I have received a notice of infringement for supposedly copying article content from a particular website (we'll call it site x). I do indeed have that content on my website (site y), but the strange thing is, I got this article from an article directory where content is free to use on a website as long as attribution is given, as I did. But what it sounds like happened is a person copied an article from (site x) and submitted it to the article directory. The article directory accepted the submission and then I unknowingly used that article on my website. Now I'm caught in the middle of it for a $2,000+ lawsuit because I have multiple instances of the article on my site. They said to remove the articles and I obviously will, but they never gave me any warning and are charging me x dollars for each instance. What do you recommend I do in this situation? Is it worth my bringing up the fact that I got this from a third party and not directly from site x, which would have definitely been wrong. Thanks for your help!

P.S. To me it feels like unknowingly buying stolen goods from a pawn shop and then getting accused of the crime! Ouch.


Asked on 11/23/11, 6:06 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Mark Dunn Mark D. Dunn

Are you saying that a lawsuit has actually been filed over this silliness?

If you've been sued, you need to file an answer (maybe - depends on whether or not you should object to jurisdiction or venue) and stop communicating with the people who sued you.

And don't give them any money.

Read more
Answered on 11/24/11, 7:28 am


Related Questions & Answers

More Intellectual Property questions and answers in Texas