I purchased some unique articles from a user which were recently published on my blog. Today I received an email from a person claiming to be the author, and that if I do not remove the article they will be sending an invoice for unauthorized publication of her copyrighted material. The problem I have, is that I have paid good money for this unique article. I'm not just going to give this up because of an email from an anonymous person. I have assured the person that I will contact the seller (and apparent writer of the articles), but asked that if in the mean time she could provide me with a dated manuscript or timestamped copy of the copyrighted matieral. Is there anything else I can do on my side? Obviously, I don't want to have to pay out. But at the same time, I don't want to have to remove this article which not only have I paid good money for, but it could potentially have a big impact on the SEO of my site. Does anyone have any suggestions on what evidence I can request from this person which would be sufficient? Thanks.
gather as much information as you can on the seller, and the claims he made when selling the articles to you. that way even if you do get contacted by authorities, you have evidence that you didn't know they were not written by the seller. I don't think that would get you out of the legal issues unless you can prove by using your best resources that you were not able to tell if it was copied, but it will if you find the seller.
Grab a sentence from the article & see if it shows up elsewhere on Google. If it does show elsewhere then you didn't buy unique content. If the complainant is the author then remove it from your site - of you don't they can get your site suspended under DMCA or get you delisted from Google or have your Adsense account affected via a DMCA notice. I doubt they will pursue the invoice if you remove the article. (IANAL).
ask her to prove how she holds the copyright to the article and proof that it was published before urs
You are ultimately responsible for content on your site. The fact that you paid someone for unique articles does not get you off the hook if the person copied someone's content. The copyright owner would go after you, and you may choose to go after the person you paid, but you are still on the hook to the copyright owner. If this person files a DMCA with google or any other search engine, they will remove the pages or site from their index. If they file it with a US host, the host can terminate your account and delete your content. I would first check archives.org to see if the content is showing on this other persons site prior to your purchase of the article (they have a time lag, so if the article was recently published, it probably won't show). The copyright owner is under no obligation to provide you with a dated manuscript or timestamp (which could easily be faked anyway).
Well the simple fact is - the other person could be equally scammed by the same person... (not saying you were scammed - just illustrating) they to may indeed have paid a 3rd party to write unique articles and in the end that person resold them for additional revenue... While it is your responsibility to ensure you only use copyright work with the holder's permission - the same is true for the other person... your wrong doesn't make theirs right. It's interesting to note that - if you have an invoice with the author's "made-for-hire" name on it and specifics to article type, quantity, and your fees paid... you have the basic information to denote a work-made-for-hire and I wouldn't worry too much about this. It's up to the claiming person to produce evidence of their copyright first before you can be found infringing on their rights. Copyright (hence infringement) can only be proven in a court of law... and if the person making a claim to search engines or your host, you can counter-claim and then they must produce evidence of court action within 10 business days... (for host this assume they have filed for protection under DMCA Title II) since you can't do that in the US without a certificate number - all you need to do is check... http://cocatalog.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?DB=local&PAGE=First to see if a copyright claim has been made. The end result... If there is no claim of copyright on file (in the USA) then the person claiming they have a claim hasn't made their claim... so can't claim you are infringing on that claim... They would indeed be committing fraud.
Thanks for the advice everyone, I guess it's better to comply than risk a DMCA being filed. I will have to look into it further and contact the writer.
The thing is... "IF" a service provider is protected under DMCA Title II... they can't do anything but follow the guidelines of DMCA... yes they must takedown... and YES they MUST put back up if a counterclaim is filed and the claimant doesn't file court action. "IF" a service provider isn't protected under DMCA Title II (not on this list http://www.copyright.gov/onlinesp/list/a_agents.html) they had better get on it before doing anything. Coercion is also a serious offense.
DMCA is merely a process. 1. check to see if there is a copyright claim at the copyright office (assumes the alleged infringement occurred in the USA/the claimant is in the USA) 2. Verify with your author and ask them to provide a written statement that they indeed wrote the article. 3. do nothing else... again a copyright holder MUST prove they have copyright BEFORE they can claim their rights are being infringed on. I find the whole thing strange... you recently published articles that you recently got written and the real author of said articles just happens to monitor similar freelance articles for infringements and asks for money? Usually, it doesn't happen that quickly... and never with a threat of invoicing.... ...pass the invoice on to the other author.