Copied listings from a website. What are my rights?

[JasonH]

I have copied various listings from a directory style site. All listings on their site were submitted by users to them, and then ive taken them and submitted them to my database. Now this site has contacted me regarding the material that they claim I "stole" from their site and they say i've infringed their copyrighted material. Do they have a case? It would be similiar to me taking listings from www.dmoz.org and putting them on my site in a directory. All i've taken is the description, a few data fields and the link to the site and put that info on my site. I haven't taken any of their slogans, logos, images or anything of that nature. Could someone please tell me whether or not they have a case? Is it possible to copyright information submitted by users to a site under intellectual properly laws?

Thanks,
Jason Horritz

 

[HomeGuru]

I have copied various listings from a directory style site. All listings on their site were submitted by users to them, and then ive taken them and submitted them to my database. Now this site has contacted me regarding the material that they claim I "stole" from their site and they say i've infringed their copyrighted material. Do they have a case? It would be similiar to me taking listings from www.dmoz.org and putting them on my site in a directory. All i've taken is the description, a few data fields and the link to the site and put that info on my site. I haven't taken any of their slogans, logos, images or anything of that nature. Could someone please tell me whether or not they have a case? Is it possible to copyright information submitted by users to a site under intellectual properly laws?

Thanks,
Jason Horritz

**A: yes, they have a case. And the word is intellectual property, not properly, so use it properly when talking about property.

 

[JasonH]

Re: Re: Copied listings from a website. What are my rights?

**A: yes, they have a case. And the word is intellectual property, not properly, so use it properly when talking about property.

Sorry for the typo. Could you go into more detail about their case. How strong is it?

 

[HomeGuru]

Re: Re: Re: Copied listings from a website. What are my rights?

Sorry for the typo. Could you go into more detail about their case. How strong is it?

**A: Post the webpage for their url and yours so we can see the evidence. I do not search so if I go to the page and it's not there, I'm gone in 5 seconds.

 

[JasonH]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Copied listings from a website. What are my rights?

**A: Post the webpage for their url and yours so we can see the evidence. I do not search so if I go to the page and it's not there, I'm gone in 5 seconds.

I would prefer not to post the URL's of the sites here. Would it be okay if I private messaged you them HomeGuru?

Thanks. I do appreciate your helpfulness here.

 

[HomeGuru]

No thanks. If everybody that wanted to send me email or PM, did so, I would not have time to be on this website.
I don't do it.

 

[JasonH]

Ok, well, can anyone explain to me more on the process of getting a "Notice of infringement". If I get one, and I take down my entire site, then file a counter notice saying the material isnt infringing, they have 14 days to decide whether or not they want to file a copyright infringement lawsuit, correct? If they dont file a lawsuit in that time, then I can bring my site back up. But what I want to know, is if they dont file a lawsuit at that time, does that mean that they forfeit their claims of copyright ownership to the material they said they owned? Or can they still file a lawsuit in the future?