> This site was originally created, if you could call stealing
> other people's work 'creating', by Terri Grodner. Since then
> it serves as a painful reminder of what can happen if you let
> unqualified and untrustworthy people do things their way....
as with the rest of the folks who've spoken up, i'm not a
lawyer.. talk to a pro before making any major decisions.
that said, the message above uses the word 'stealing'. it
accuses you of violating the intellectual property rights of
others. if the graphics you used were licensed for reuse (and
i'm pretty sure you're smart enough to have been responsible on
that score), the charge is false. as far as i know, accusing
people of crimes they didn't commit, in print, is libel.
putting information online is publication. as such, it is subject
to exactly the same laws as any newsaper, magazine, or broadcast.
i can't see a piece of venom like that getting past the editors
of a newspaper, so my guess is that it would be tough to defend.
IMHO, the first lawyer you should talk to is theirs.. show him a
copy of the page with the message, say you're presenting him
with the information as documentation of its existence, and ask
whether he's willing to defend it in court. odds are, he won't
be. at that point it will be his job to make the company aware
of the potential consequences of Joe's actions. better still,
the bill will most likely go to the company, because it's their
legal ass he's saving.
i think you can get more leverage out of forcing the company to
prepare a defense against a /potential/ lawsuit than you could
from actually taking them to court. all you have to do is
collect the documentation that would be used to support your
side of the argument. their best (least expensive) defense
would be to remove the offending material immediately, and give
you all sorts of nice apologies. anything else they choose
would probably be less effective if it ever did go to court, and
be more expensive over the long run.
the ongoing expense to you, of gathering more documentation
(assuming Joe doesn't have the brains to keep his virtual mouth
shut), will be relatively low. the ongoing expense to them, of
building a defense against a growing body of documentation, would
be increasingly large. if Joe absolutely refuses to play nice,
i think you can squeeze the company until it sings soprano,
without ever having to file an actual lawsuit.
the potential for getting caught is only one of the
disadvantages of doing the wrong thing.. just continuing to
dodge the bullets can get to be very expensive.
mike stone <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 'net geek..
been there, done that, have network, will travel.
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