Our company's site http://www.americancell.com was totally copied many months ago by a site called www.cellmyway.com see: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=info:http://cellmyway.com They have recently removed the content - but note the pages and pages of stolen content including our copyright. We believe that having a copy of our site in Google's cache could notbe a good thing for the site's success (same with Yahoo and MSN). We got them to remove the site by calling Inphonic - our partner and the company through wiyth they were shipping cell phones as well. Within 20 minutes the site was down. We are planning to sue these guys because of the damage they have done to our site over the past year (we never understood why many original pages were listed as supplemental in Google...) - but we do not have their complete contact info as they have hidden their WHOIS info. What is the best way to proceed? Sam Michelson
Unfortunately Sam... you cannot sue "unless" you have previously registered your copyright with the US Copyright Office. Well you can threaten it - but can guarantee you will never get to court since you cannot meet the miinimum burden of proof which, according to US Copyright law, is the certificate of copyright. (unless you have done this already). You can send to all search engines a Takedown Order for all "alleged infringement material" and they will remove immediately (including cache versions). I suspect the other party will not counter-claim (if they do you must show search engines proof of ligitation - and since registration is a prerequisite to file you should do that anyway). For literary works (including online works) is $45. Pretty inexpensive and it legal power you have with that is considerable... it is worth filing then (if you know the infringer has assets to cover damages.
That's a matter of vantagepoint. Assuming you are talking about UK you are correct "common law" is all that is needed. However, in the US where registration is required this sustains the burden of proof. In the UK you need to first prove that the copyright is yours, then Prove the alleged infringer did not obtain permission, and Wilfully infringed (had no good faith belief that the material was "fair use" or in the "public domain"). In the US, registered material is made available to the public, you cannot argue good faith believe as this would imply that "you formally checked". If registered, the issue isn't (usually) winning or losing - but "how much"... with common law - you could indeed be the rightful owner and still lose.
You should proably watch out because if he stole your website and a pretty big chance that he uploaded it to a warez site. Good luck anyways!