What is the name of your state? Michigan
I am writing to see if I can sue someone for defamation and slander. What happened is I created a web site (Web Design Company) that used some text content from another persons web site. When I used it I did not see any indication of copyright to the work. So I used the information on to pages within my site. I did change some of the stuff but most of the information on those two pages was the same as on his page. I thought that if it is not copyrighted it is public domain. What happened next is what I have a question about. First I must provide some history to this case. I had applied for a job with this person and had to show him some examples of my work that I have done in the past. So he had these links and names of individual that I had done work for in the past. He then proceeded to send a letter to each of these individual indicating that I was claiming that they were still my clients and that they should be made aware of my alleged violation of copyright and plagiarism. But on the web site that I created for my web design business I never stated that any of these individuals were still my clients. I didn’t even have a portfolio section on my web site. He lastly also sent this information to my employer, which has nothing to do with web design or the Internet. He also stated that 95 percent of my site was his and only 5 percent was mine. Were technically speaking it is more like about 70 percent was mine and 30 percent was his. I do feel that I did use some of his information but not to the extent that he claimed. And that is what I have a problem with. He is not telling the whole story. He is only telling bits and pieces of the information. Do I have any remedies to this or is my reputation damaged and that is all that I can do? What about if I lose my job from my current employer? Please Help!!!
I am writing to see if I can sue someone for defamation and slander. What happened is I created a web site (Web Design Company) that used some text content from another persons web site. When I used it I did not see any indication of copyright to the work. So I used the information on to pages within my site. I did change some of the stuff but most of the information on those two pages was the same as on his page. I thought that if it is not copyrighted it is public domain. What happened next is what I have a question about. First I must provide some history to this case. I had applied for a job with this person and had to show him some examples of my work that I have done in the past. So he had these links and names of individual that I had done work for in the past. He then proceeded to send a letter to each of these individual indicating that I was claiming that they were still my clients and that they should be made aware of my alleged violation of copyright and plagiarism. But on the web site that I created for my web design business I never stated that any of these individuals were still my clients. I didn’t even have a portfolio section on my web site. He lastly also sent this information to my employer, which has nothing to do with web design or the Internet. He also stated that 95 percent of my site was his and only 5 percent was mine. Were technically speaking it is more like about 70 percent was mine and 30 percent was his. I do feel that I did use some of his information but not to the extent that he claimed. And that is what I have a problem with. He is not telling the whole story. He is only telling bits and pieces of the information. Do I have any remedies to this or is my reputation damaged and that is all that I can do? What about if I lose my job from my current employer? Please Help!!!
