All producers/sites interested in dealing with the piracy problem...

[gaybucks_chip]

Titan does an amazing job with Gil Sperling, their own in-house counsel, going after infringing use of their content. My understanding is this is actually a profit center, rather than a cost center, for Titan. I've been thinking about this, and the thought occurred to me, what about this as an idea:

Get a bunch of studios/site owners/content producers that are interested in taking action against various forms of piracy (tube sites, blogs, torrent sites, Yahoo groups, etc.)

Find a young, aggressive, recent law school graduate who isn't planning to work for a large firm.

Make a blanket arrangement whereby s/he would exclusively represent all the participating studios/site owners on issues relating to piracy and infringement

Do some combination of a guarantee or retainer arrangement against a percentage of money collected from the infringers. If a guarantee or retainer is involved, perhaps participating companies could estimate how much infringement they have and monthly fees could reflect this (based on how many DMCA letters/infringement actions are made for a given company). The retainer or guarantee could be done to provide funds for court costs and office expenses.

The attorney would do a combination of cease-and-desist letters to bloggers who don't appear to be easy targets for collecting money, and infringement lawsuits against larger targets that have assets. A part-time admin assistant could be hired to help with sending out DMCA notices, infringement letters, etc, to get the best bang for the buck.

If we got, say, 10 studios together, I can't imagine we couldn't find a young attorney who would be interested in taking on this sort of arrangement. If s/he got good at it, it could be a very lucrative practice.

What problems do people see, and is anyone interested?

[barnkin]

Very interesting concept, if you can get a lawyer interested and get the details in order, I have direct contact with over 100 Studios that I am willing to contact to see if there is any interest on their part.

How would it work over national borders, would everything be run under international copyright laws?

[gaybucks_chip]

No clue. It clearly gets more complicated doing international claims because you would have to have a correspondent attorney or barrister in each country, but to be most effective, it would clearly be beneficial to have coverage in at least the countries where major offenders are located

[TropixxxMichael]

Chip, great idea!

But I wonder how many studios actually take the time to register their copyright. Granted, copyright protection is afforded automatically, but in order to recover damages, it needs to be a registered copyright.

"Before an infringement suit may be filed in court, registration is necessary for works of U.S. origin.

If registration is made within 3 months after publication of the work or prior to an infringement of the work, statutory damages and attorney's fees will be available to the copyright owner in court actions. Otherwise, only an award of actual damages and profits is available to the copyright owner."

(From: http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html#cr)

Actual damages would be kind of hard to prove IMHO.


Now....how many studios take that time and effort to fill out the form, pay the fee, mail the copies in, etc?


I would bet a lot fewer than you would think.

[gaybucks_chip]

Oh, I think you're totally right on that. Actual damages are near impossible to show.

I'll have to double check with an intellectual property attorney; I know at least as of a couple years ago, the phrase "publication" did not include internet publication according to the copyright office, so if that's still true, anyone participating could still register all of their content within the timeframe required to allow statutory damages.

[TropixxxMichael]

Oh, I think you're totally right on that. Actual damages are near impossible to show.

I'll have to double check with an intellectual property attorney; I know at least as of a couple years ago, the phrase "publication" did not include internet publication according to the copyright office, so if that's still true, anyone participating could still register all of their content within the timeframe required to allow statutory damages.

LOL...well, I have no clue if I am right or not, I just had to take a copyright class as part of my Journalism Degree a few years ago and I remembered something odd about internet publication versus actual publication and registration, etc. It would worth talking to an attorney for sure.

[gaybucks_chip]

You're one up on me if you've taken a course in copyright :)

It's so complex to deal with all that stuff... and I think some of it (like publication) is open to interpretation... but if we can find the right IP attorney I'm sure we can get a definitive answer.

And, of course, the other thing is... whether or not the copyrights are registered and the statutory damages are actually there, just the cost of filing a defense to a lawsuit is substantial, so the act of filing the lawsuit will probably, in most of these cases, get people to settle. Look at the RIAA model. I don't agree with what they're doing, but it's certainly working.