Article Author Wins Lawsuit vs. SEO Firm

Noticing that article marketing seems to be a widely used strategy by Warriors, I thought this new case summary, which came out today, would be useful to you. Some lessons:

1) Don't use other peoples' articles, even if you are changing the words around;
2) Don't use other peoples' articles, even if you are promoting products that do not compete with the article's original author;
3) If you sue someone for using your articles, be reasonable about how much money you are going to win in court (this guy won $1,000 after trial, but was hoping for some kind of jackpot verdict);
4) If you can resolve a dispute with someone who used your articles outside of court, everyone will be better off.

Here's the summary from the Court's Newletter (which is a public document -- I'm not stealing! :-)

-Curt K

Copyright Infringement
and Attorney Fees

Plaintiff brought a copyright
infringement action against
defendants after copyrighted
material that he authored was
posted on a website controlled by
defendants. The purpose of
defendants' use, to attract
customers to their website, was
commercial. Defendants further
used search engine optimization
techniques to make the article
search-friendly. The use of the
subject article was not
transformative, but an exact copy
with minor edits. Defendants had
significant experience in search
engine optimization techniques, and
an obvious word search on the
internet would have easily led them
to plaintiff's website where they
would have discovered the
copyrighted subject article.
Although the court held that
there was copyright infringement, it
declined to exercise its discretion to
increase damages for willful
infringement for two reasons: first,
although defendants plagiarized the
bulk of plaintiff's ad promoting his
product and tailored it to fit their
non-competing product, the product
was not one that plaintiff sold
separately; second, plaintiff's
original attorney sent defendants a
demand letter requesting $300,000
and threatened to refer the matter
for criminal prosecution unless a
demand for money was satisfied--
such a tactic was itself arguably a
violation of the law. The court
awarded statutory damages of
$1,000.

The court denied a
subsequent motion for attorney
fees and costs, pointing out that
defendants had offered to resolve
the case before trial by paying
plaintiff $750 plus reasonable fees
and costs incurred up to that date.
Plaintiff spurned the offer,
engaged in no further settlement
discussions, and decided to pursue
litigation, incurring the vast bulk
of his fees and costs thereafter for
a net increase of $250 over
defendants' offer. Further,
defendants caused no actual
damages to plaintiff, nor did they
create the potential for actual
damages. The purpose of
compensation and/or deterrence
would not be served by rewarding
plaintiff for his efforts to obtain
an enormous windfall by
threatening criminal prosecution
and, after his unreasonable
monetary demand was properly
rejected by defendants, pursuing
the litigation to an unsuccessful
conclusion. Plaintiff's motion was
denied.

McNamara v. Universal
Commercial Services,
CV 07-6079-TC
(Findings of Fact and Conclusion
of Law, Sept. 16, 2008, Opinion