Copyright Infringement - Case Study

[Shawn]

Recently, on a website I manage, a new website popped up on overture and google adwords. I was informed from the client that they stolen much of the content from that site; including pictures, text etc. I did a whois search and found out they were hosted by some small hosting company.

I then sent them a copy of this letter:

HOSTING COMPANY NOTIFICATION OF INFRINGING CONTENT

Recipient Information:
Web Host's Name
Address
City, State, Zip


Sent via: Federal Express
Re: NOTICE OF COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT

Dear (Web Host Name):

We act on behalf of (Your Company Name). (the "Owner").

As required under Sections 512(c)(3) and 512(d)(3) of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (17 U.S.C. §§512(c)(3) and 512(d)(3)), we are instructed to place you on notice that:

1. The Owner is the exclusive owner of the copyrights in and to (your website / company); and

XXXX
Put exact details of the infringing content here. It also helps to show exact urls of their content and where that same content appears on your site.
XXXX


Please immediately remove or disable all access to the Infringing Material.

I have a good faith belief that the use of the Infringing Material is not authorized by the Owner, its agents or the law. The information in this Notice of Copyright Infringement is accurate and under penalty of perjury, I am authorized to act on behalf of the Owner.

Should you require any further information regarding this matter, please contact me at the address, telephone number or email address indicated below:

Company Name
Your Name
Your Address
Tel: (xxx) xxx-xxxx
Email:

Very truly yours,
Sign Here

So, after I sent that letter out, they replied to me via fax stating that they deleted the infringing parties' account. They provided me no additional details except for that.

At this point I was happy, I thought I won. Then about 4 days later, there is the same site. Once again, I checked the whois and it was yahoo webhosting this time.

This time, realizing that the only threat he poses to the client was via overture and adwords. Therefore I sent overture the following letter:

CEASE AND DESIST - AIDING AND ABETTING KNOWN COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENTS

Please be advised: The following is the exact letter sent, with the infringing parties' urls modified into non-hyperlinked urls.

[code:1:67cb71c0f1]
My Name
My Title
Address
City, State, Zip
tel xxx-xxx-xxxx
fax xxx-xxx-xxxx


OWNERS (CLIENT) NAME
Owners Address
City, State, Zip
www.chicagohunksandbabes.com
DIRECT LINE: 773-xxx-2500
Internet: xxxxxxxxx@yahoo.com


June 17, 2004

VIA FEDERAL EXPRESS

Edward Henderson
Chicago 4 Play Strippers
6005 N Milwaukee Ave.
Chicago, Il 60646


Re: Unauthorized Use and Disclosure of Intellectual Property

Dear Overture:

I represent H & B Entertainment, Inc. ("H & B Entertainment"), owner of all intellectual property rights in the H & B Entertainment website address www.chicagohunksandbabes.com . Through H & B Entertainment's extensive and continuous use and promotion of this product and other systems, H & B Entertainment's mark is well recognized in the Chicago, Illinois area, and its intellectual property has acquired substantial good will, particularly among its Chicago area customers. It recently has come to H & B Entertainment's attention that Edward Henderson has stolen images and textual mapping on their website as of June 11, 2004. The website located at http://www.www.chicago4playstrippers.com (IP Address: 69.57.145.197), registered on 12-08-2003, Mr. Henderson's website, states that, "The shows consist of your entertainer arriving (in costume if requested), and teasingly dance and strip for the bachelorette and embarrass the bachelorette to the crowd's approval. They will often do tricks and games, then offer individual lap dances for the rest of the crowd. The shows run between 30 to 60 minutes, sometimes longer depending on participation of the crowd.." Which is only one of many exact copies from H & B Entertainment’s website at www.chicagohunksandbabes.com . The website also has stolen images located at http://www.chicago4playstrippers.com/males.html. The exact images are:

http://www.chicago4playstrippers.com/img/zach.jpg
http://www.chicago4playstrippers.com/img/enriqueNew.jpg
http://www.chicago4playstrippers.com/img/don-juan.jpg
http://www.chicago4playstrippers.com/img/ivan.jpg


Mr Henderson has even cropped the images to remove H & B Entertainment’s copyright watermark from the said images. The images were stolen from

www.chicagohunksandbabes.com/angel.htm
www.chicagohunksandbabes.com/sebastian.htm
www.chicagohunksandbabes.com/ben.htm
www.chicagohunksandbabes.com/dominic.htm


Please be advised that the actions described on Mr. Henderson's website, including the hacking of H & B Entertainment's system, are illegal, and that any effort by either Mr. Henderson to convey to others in whole or in part from such actions, particularly in an effort to cause H & B Entertainment economic harm, would be improper.

Please be advised further that the http://www.chicago4playstrippers.com website's use of the H & B Entertainment’s textual paragraphs and the H & B Entertainment’s pictures is unauthorized and far exceeds the parameters of any nominative fair use, constituting a false designation of origin in violation of the federal Lanham Act, and we caution that we have not authorized H & B Entertainment's name, logo, textual intelectual properties and images to be used in any seminar, website, email, print or in any presentation. We are also examining whether the actions of Mr. Henderson may have violated other federal laws, including (among others) the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, the Economic Espionage Act, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, and the Consumer Fraud and Abuse Act.

Accordingly, H & B Entertainment requests that you immediately cease and desist from any facilitation of the use of its name and marks in any manner, and that you remove all references to H & B Entertainment and its intellectual property including but not limited to images, text, sentence structure and wording from any website, power point presentation, business handouts, email, or any other promotional materials and that you refrain from any use of such marks.

H & B Entertainment is filing a motion for preliminary and permanent injunctive relief against Mr. Henderson, to prevent the anticipated actions their website has announced. H & B Entertainment is actively seeking a temporary restraining order and other injunctive relief in this matter. Failure to comply with these requests may expose you or your organization to an action for injunctive relief or monetary damages, and any other relief permitted under state and federal law, including court costs and attorneys' fees. You may also wish to consider and examine the potential criminal consequences, under theories of aiding and abetting and conspiracy, if you facilitate Mr. Henderson's efforts despite their known and admitted infringements.

If you fail to comply with these requests, H & B Entertainment will have no choice but to proceed in a manner appropriate to protect its valuable intellectual property rights.

Sincerely,
XXXXXXXXXXXXXX


Cc: Daniel xxxxxxxx
Copyright Agent
xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sunnyvale, CA 94089
By phone: (408) xxx-5080
By fax: (408) xxx-7821

[/code:1:67cb71c0f1]


The result? Overture emailed me this:

[code:1:67cb71c0f1]
Dear Mr. xxxxxxx:

We have received notice from the site administrator for http://www.chicago4playstrippers.com that the infringing content has been removed from the website. Please provide us with confirmation as soon as possible.
Thank you.
Copyright Department
Overture Services, Inc.
[/code:1:67cb71c0f1]


So, I looked at the site, and sure enough the pictures were gone, but still a lot of the text remained..exactly as mine.

So I replied back to Overture with:

[code:1:67cb71c0f1]
Dear Overture,

Thank you for your email. I have reviewed http://www.chicago4playstrippers.com and they have infact removed the pictures, however, what still remains, are the textual paragraphs regarding goods and services they provide are an exact duplication of www.chicagohunksandbabes.com .

Examples:

"Services"
http://www.chicago4playstrippers.com/OurServices.html

Of which is an exact duplication of:

www.chicagohunksandbabes.com/mservices.htm
and
www.chicagohunksandbabes.com/fservices.htm

Another example:

"Male Revues"
http://www.chicago4playstrippers.com/Chris.htm

Of which is an exact duplication of
www.chicagohunksandbabes.com/schedule.htm

Excerpt:
The Chicago Hunks show is unique.
You can't go down the block and see the same thing.
Our job is to make sure everyone leave satisfied. If the girls want something we get it. Its our staff that makes them want to come back.
These aren't average local college kids, these are real models, actors, and entertainers.
Before the show even starts all the hunks and hosts are mingling with the crowd making the ladies feel special and taking pictures with them.
That's what sets us above and beyond the rest is that we are an experience, not just a show.
On this last example, http://www.www.chicago4playstrippers.com has simply replaced "Chicago Hunks" with his company name to confuse their customers.

All of this was documented in the original cease and desist order.

Extracted from the cease order:

"The website located at http://www.chicago4playstrippers.com (IP Address: 69.57.145.197), registered on 12-08-2003, Mr. Henderson's website, states that, "The shows consist of your entertainer arriving (in costume if requested), and teasingly dance and strip for the bachelorette and embarrass the bachelorette to the crowd's approval. They will often do tricks and games, then offer individual lap dances for the rest of the crowd. The shows run between 30 to 60 minutes, sometimes longer depending on participation of the crowd.." Which is only one of many exact copies from H & B Entertainment’s website at www.chicagohunksandbabes.com . "

In addition, from the DMCA "Fair Use Policy" I have addressed the possible fair uses from the original cease and desist order:

I believe that the actions described on Mr. Henderson's website, including the hacking of H & B Entertainment's system, copying several exact paragraphs of goods or services, are illegal, and that any effort by either Mr. Henderson to convey to others in whole or in part that they represent those goods or services, from such actions, particularly in an effort to cause H & B Entertainment economic harm, would be improper.

Please be advised further that the http://www.www.chicago4playstrippers.com website's use of the H & B Entertainment’s textual paragraphs and the H & B Entertainment’s pictures is unauthorized and far exceeds the parameters of any nominative fair use, constituting a false designation of origin in violation of the federal Lanham Act, and we caution that we have not authorized H & B Entertainment's name, logo, textual intelectual properties and images to be used in any seminar, website, email, prin t or in any presentation. We are also examining whether the actions of Mr. Henderson may have violated other federal laws, including (among others) the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, the Economic Espionage Act, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, and the Consumer Fraud and Abuse Act.

In addition, you will notice that I have referenced the date of creation of http://www.chicago4playstrippers.com on the original cease and desist order to be 12-08-2003. Therefore, it is would be almost impossible to; in that time frame be considered by any standard the "Hottest and Largest Entertainment Agency in Chicago".

Example:
http://www.chicago4playstrippers.com/img/Intro-text.gif

Of which appears on:
chicago4p--laystrippers.com/MainPage.html

I believe this to be a deceptive advertising method to maliciously trick customers into thinking they are established, well-known and respectable.

In conclusion, I firmly believe the moral agenda of http://www.chicago4playstrippers.com is deceptive and servers no other purpose but to "win business" any way that it can, even if that means breaking the law and "scamming" it's customers.

I hope this helps answer your question regarding the infringing content on http://www.chicago4playstrippers.com. Thank you.

Sincerely,
XXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Toll Free xxx-xxx-xxxx
Direct Line xxx-xxx-xxxx
[/code:1:67cb71c0f1]



The result? Within 30 minutes Overture replied back to me letting me know that the infringing parties website will be removed from Overture's system within 24hrs, and will no longer be allowed to advertise.

[kiwidesigner]

Well done! I've had to do exactly the same thing on about 5 occassions over the past 2 years. Very frustrating when someone steals your work.

Karen

[thebassman]

Nice, congrats.

[awall19]

thats cool

[ash]

Nice One! Good to see people standing up for what is theirs!
It's just a shame it happens more often that we like to think.

[rushy]

ive been in the middle of copyright infringement case too, of which we were in our rights though. I respect anyone who stands up for their material, as I respect anyone who uses material in right way. Nice post!

[hulkster]

I've mentioned in other threads my story about scumbags who do this type of stuff (read how Graeme Kellett from feverdating.com stole my site) ... but these guys went totally over the top with the image crops - nice job Shawn "bustin'" 'em ... and a lifetime ban from Google would be nice too!

[Fusion]

retards