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cooper
Posts: 773
From: Woburn MA USA
Status: offline
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Do I shoulder any responsibility here? - 5/5/2003 12:52:39
I sell FrontPage web templates. This morning there was an email in my inbox from a site owner who is taking issue with a site create by one of my customers, using one of my templates.
Apparently, my customer (I don' t even know the URL) has used one of my templates to build a site and has copied a fair amount of content from another site. Here is the message I got copied on this morning:
Dr. Mounir,
It has recently come to my attention that much of your website has been copied directly from our website at www.la-plastic-surgery.com, and is in direct violation of copyright infringement laws. The photos are identical to those on our website, and much of the text is copied verbatim. (We would know since we wrote every word ourselves). This obviously reflects poorly on your moral and ethical character, and one has to question your medical knowledge and abilities as well.
Upon receipt of this email message, you must immediately remove the content from your website that has been copied from www.la-plastic-surgery.com. If the plagiarised content is not removed by May 9th, 2003, we will take the following actions:
1. Notification to the British Medical Association of unethical conduct.
2. Notification to the French Medical Association of unethical conduct.
3. Notification to the British Association of Plastic Surgeons of unethical conduct.
4. Notification to Comstock Photo of probably copyright infringement and theft of photographs.
5. Seeking of punitive damages for copyright infringement.
6. Seeking reimbursement for the cost of the website, time involved to research and write the text, and personal damages for the negative effect that linking your website to ours may have had.
Sincerely,
Jonathan Hoenig, MD
Danya Hoenig, PA-C
California Institute of Cosmetic Surgery
5400 Balboa Blvd, Suite 127
Encino, CA 91316
818.501.4550
cc: William B. Cooper III, support @bacwebdesign.com
Now, I was copied as the " support@bacwebdesign.com" address is buried in the template so folks can contact me for help. All I did was supply the template for a fee. Does my responsibility end there?
_____________________________
Cooper
BAC Web Design - Tools & Templates - Buck A Ball - Stopspamstop.com
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Gil
Posts: 7533
From: North Carolina, USA
Status: offline
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RE: Do I shoulder any responsibility here? - 5/5/2003 13:21:02
Cooper, I think an attorney could better answer your question. But, if you did not have anything to do with the content or images referenced and are not the owner of the domain, I don' t see how you could have any liability here.
_____________________________
Gil Harvey, 1947-2004
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caywind
Posts: 1479
From: USA
Status: offline
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RE: Do I shoulder any responsibility here? - 5/16/2003 2:03:16
scare tactic - look at the grammar quote:
4. Notification to Comstock Photo of probably copyright infringement and theft of photographs.
5. Seeking of punitive damages for copyright infringement
Any real legal action will be printed on a Lawyers letterhead and sent via snail mail or registered mail! That way they have notice of receipt. Right now all you would have to say is " never got it" . I would log and print everything. Take all printouts and mail them to yourself for date verification. I would ignore it until the next contact, and then threaten countersuit for time and legal fees wasted on such a trivial matter...(BTW, you make $1000 an hour don' t you). fortunately my biggest client is a whole family of lawyers who have no problem sending threatening letters. Oh incidentally, log all hours that you spend on this, including this post!
I mean really, can I sue somebody because their car looks just like mine? It' s a template!
If you want to get ahold of them now, just take the " lowly web template designer " who has nothing to do with content, tack. There are many precedents on this one, I wouldn' t worry....
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cooper
Posts: 773
From: Woburn MA USA
Status: offline
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RE: Do I shoulder any responsibility here? - 5/16/2003 8:10:40
Thanks for the thoughts!
I did reply to the sender letting them know I simply designed and sold a template (that looks nothcing like their site) and that my customer was the one responsible for the content of the site.
I also emailed the customer asking them to address this to avoid any trouble for either one of us. He then had the " you-know-what" to ask me for a refund on the $12 template becuase he couldn' t figure out how to edit the java script scrolling text box!
People are amazing!
_____________________________
Cooper
BAC Web Design - Tools & Templates - Buck A Ball - Stopspamstop.com
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Printable Version 
. Personally I would consider it a stretch to hold you responsible for what your customer did. Perhaps to CYA a little more change the wording around the support address to " template design and 
