B
bettylou
Guest
Here's the case. I'm trying to decide whether it would be worth it to persue it all the way thru trial. Any help/ideas would be greatly appreciated.
Background:
I wrote a column for a local newspaper for 10 years. No contract was signed, and I retained all rights. During one six month period they paid me to reprint the column in one of their other publications. And from time to time I would find the column appear on their web site, and asked them to remove it. They emailed back (I have copies) and said they knew they had no rights to the work, and would remove the copies.
Later, after the Tasini decision, and three months before they stopped the column, they sent a one-page contract stating they owned "exclusive rights in California" and all rights for distributing it on their web sites for work dated from that point forward. I signed, but was never paid the additional amount specified on the contract to compensate for the additional rights.
After I was fired, I found they had archived all 10 years of my column without my authorization during a period between 1996-2001. I also found they resold the column to six other organizations, that in turn posted them in their electronic archives and resold to the public during the same period.
I was paid $40 per column. I was offered $100 in a separate contract which I never signed. I resold derivative works (3) (similar, but not 100% the same) to other news organizations for an average of $1,500, and was paid 15K/piece for several books I wrote that were eventually based on the columns.
I did not register any of these columns, although in anticipation of a case, I am in the process of doing so.
My questions:
1. Knowing I would win on the infringement/liability issue because they admit to the infringements, and knowing they do not own any additional rights, would I have much of a monetary case? There are about 680 infringements of about 280 columns.
On freeadvice it states:
An infringer can be liable for actual damages plus additional profits of the infringer or statutory damages. Further, an infringer could be held liable for injury to business reputation or the dilution in the value of the copyright.
2. What are actual damages? Would that be what I COULD have sold the pieces to these various organizations for? Or what I could prove I had sold similar pieces to other organizations for, i.e., the $1,500 I had received previously from other companies?
3. Since the works are not collective in nature, in that they resold each work individually, each time it appeared in print, and I have evidence of all 680 infringements, is this a substantial case?
thanks
Background:
I wrote a column for a local newspaper for 10 years. No contract was signed, and I retained all rights. During one six month period they paid me to reprint the column in one of their other publications. And from time to time I would find the column appear on their web site, and asked them to remove it. They emailed back (I have copies) and said they knew they had no rights to the work, and would remove the copies.
Later, after the Tasini decision, and three months before they stopped the column, they sent a one-page contract stating they owned "exclusive rights in California" and all rights for distributing it on their web sites for work dated from that point forward. I signed, but was never paid the additional amount specified on the contract to compensate for the additional rights.
After I was fired, I found they had archived all 10 years of my column without my authorization during a period between 1996-2001. I also found they resold the column to six other organizations, that in turn posted them in their electronic archives and resold to the public during the same period.
I was paid $40 per column. I was offered $100 in a separate contract which I never signed. I resold derivative works (3) (similar, but not 100% the same) to other news organizations for an average of $1,500, and was paid 15K/piece for several books I wrote that were eventually based on the columns.
I did not register any of these columns, although in anticipation of a case, I am in the process of doing so.
My questions:
1. Knowing I would win on the infringement/liability issue because they admit to the infringements, and knowing they do not own any additional rights, would I have much of a monetary case? There are about 680 infringements of about 280 columns.
On freeadvice it states:
An infringer can be liable for actual damages plus additional profits of the infringer or statutory damages. Further, an infringer could be held liable for injury to business reputation or the dilution in the value of the copyright.
2. What are actual damages? Would that be what I COULD have sold the pieces to these various organizations for? Or what I could prove I had sold similar pieces to other organizations for, i.e., the $1,500 I had received previously from other companies?
3. Since the works are not collective in nature, in that they resold each work individually, each time it appeared in print, and I have evidence of all 680 infringements, is this a substantial case?
thanks