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.

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


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