James A. Blomquist

Have you seen an interesting article in a trade publication recently and perhaps thought of sending a copy to your coworkers? Don’t do it! You can certainly email them a summary, or send them a link and suggest that they read the article, but Do Not Copy it and attach it to your e-mail.

Liability for copyright infringement can be substantial. The copyright owner may recover either actual damages, the infringer’s profits, or statutory damages. Statutory damages can be up to $30,000 per act and may be increased to $150,000 per act if “willful.”

Various industry groups actively search for “pirates”. The Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) is the principal trade association for the software and content industry. It recently announced the first settlement in its Corporate Content Anti-Piracy Program. See http://www.siia.net/press/releases/ Antipiracy_KN-settlement-release.pdf.

Their news release dated August 16, 2007 states in part: “SIIA reached a $300,000 agreement to settle copyright infringement claims against Knowledge Networks, Inc. … a mid-sized market research company with offices in San Francisco, New York and several other cities. The firm’s marketing group had been distributing “press packets” internally to certain employees … [that] sometimes included … copyrighted articles owned by SIIA members such as the Associated Press, Reed Elsevier, and United Press International. … SIIA learned of the infringement though a confidential tip and … the individual who reported the case to SIIA is receiving a reward of $6,000 ...”

In one recent court case, Lowry’s Reports, Inc. v. Legg Mason, Inc., the court held that Legg Mason was liable for copyright infringement damages in the amount of $20 Million. Legg Mason had one subscription to plaintiff Lowry’s market-trend-analysis newsletter but Legg Mason distributed the newsletter company-wide by e-mail.

In American Geophysical Union v. Texaco, Inc., defendant Texaco was found liable for copyright infringement for photocopying and circulating copies of trade journals and publications in-house to all employees despite the fact that they had paid for only one licensed copy.

Avoid copyright infringement. Do not attach copies of articles to your e-mail or fax copies. Instead send a citation or link with a summary. Adopt a corporate policy to that effect.

For additional information, please contact James Blomquist (651-312-6006).