A former employee of mine has stolen my book and is selling it rebranded, through his own site. He is using E-Junkie to distribute it. I have sent them, and his host, a DMCA notice. His host hasn't taken action yet, but ejunkie already shutdown his account. However, he can still use paypal to process payments. Would the correct move be to send a cease and desist to paypal demanding that they shut down his account, or how should I handle this? Thank you.
Okay well I contacted paypal and they told me that I would have to file a law enforcement claim or sue him in order for them to cut off his account.
Yes I have proof (Copyright)... and it's an ebook. Dreamhost is ignoring my DMCA. They sent me notification that they received it but have ignored all further emails, I sent it to them 3 days ago. What is the next level of action to get them to remove the material since they don't seem to care?
Give Dreamhost a call. They are a pretty big company, not well known for customer service, since you aren't a customer you're bound to get even worse service. It's good you have a copyright. Know of any family or friends that are lawyers who can give you quick advice?
Thank you for the help. They don't have a number listed... only fax. I'd rather not get an attorney involved in this but it appears I might in order to get them to act. Unfortunately no family or friends that are attorney's.
Make sure you sent the DMCA notice to the right place (abuse@dreamhost.com). Sending it anywhere else is probably pointless. If you need a number,the registered agent's number is listed with the copyright office (see it here). They just have to respond expidiciously, not immediately. Three days is probably still within that window.
Kill the guy... xD No. Now serious, you should keep insisting in contacting and spamming paypal and dreamhost to get an answer. We never know if they take action or no, so keep pushing.
You being stupid. Did you follow DreamHost's DMCA complaint filling procedure? Simply flinging an email wont help you at all. Again, DreamHost will also require you to file a lawsuit against him. You can't bring down a site simply that way. -- Ganesh
This isn't legal advice, but I'd recommend that you get an attorney if you have a registered copyright on the E-Book. They'll send a DCMA notice to DreamHost. One of the caveats of the DCMA is the vague language that many judges have interpreted to mean that there must be a mailed notice to them. An email might not suffice. An attorney will help you there. If DreamHost does not respond within a given time period, they are also liable for hosting the content- and you can make some extra cash. After that, you can file a lawsuit against the individual, and given a court order, the PayPal proceeds from the sale as well as additional damages can be forwarded to you.
I don't understand why PayPal would shutdown his account because its not like his website (where the content is just the ebook). His account isn't just for this e-book (and even if thats all it is used for...it could be used to more).
Yes I sent it to the right place and it was formatted correctly. I'm being stupid? Again, the DMCA was formatted correctly. Yes, Dreamhost is required to take down the content... they can put it back up only after he files a counter notice which relieves their liability. He would be pretty idiotic to file a counter notice under penalty of perjury. DMCA's have already been sent to Dreamhost and his distributor. The distributor removed the content the day after I sent it. Yes... it's only used for it. The website's sole purpose is to sell the book... illegally. The paypal email is
Yes, that is the email that is being used. However, they can't delete his account as he may have multiple accounts setup to that paypal. Removing that email from his payment processing doesn't really change much of anything. If you shut the site down you accomplished what you needed to. Removing his email from a paypal account doesn't mean that he might not legally sell anything else thorough his paypal account.
Ok, I was in a somewhat similar situation a while ago.. Not with Paypal, cannot suggest anything from experience about them, but with a host of an asshat that was stealing our site's content and republishing it (manually too, not using any software). I started off with a DMCA warning written by all rules, identifying copyrighted materials, stating that it's mine, etc.... I sent it to abuse@ they did not respond in two days. Then I cranked up the volume, reminding the host that if they do not immediately remove copyrighted materials they WILL be held just as liable as the one that's stealing copyright. You have to use strong official-like language. Here's my example: Dear Sir/Madam, As I have not received a reply to my last (courteous) e-mail I have no other solution but to proceed with this official DMCA copyright infringement notice. Please note that by law you have to take quick action after receipt of this official DMCA copyright infringement notice, which I documented as having been sent today. Otherwise you will be held liable for failure to remove copyrighted materials in question, which are clearly identified in this notice. I will keep following this issue closely and if there are no changes in the situation I will have our lawyer call you next week and proceed with more concrete legal actions. To be honest I am surprised that you did not get back to me yet on this issue, since you seem to be a respectable business that does not need legal troubles. Currently your customer is hurting our business development, and we will do everything necessary to stop this situation from happening. DIGITAL MILLENNIUM COPYRIGHT ACT 1. Detailed identity of the copyrighted work that I believe has been infringed upon. This includes identification of the web page or specific posts, as opposed to entire sites. Posts must be referenced by either the dates in which they appear or the permalink of the post ...etc That immediately did the trick, the next day the website in question was suspended and never came back online again, although they never wrote back to me. It seems the only thing that works is reminding them that this leaves them open for a lawsuit and letting them know that you WILL act. In your case you can bring up "damages" and "indemnities". That will make them decide whether they want to keep someone that pays them say $5/month for hosting as a customer, or whether they'd like to avoid lawyer's fees and paying you for damages. For more effect you can mass mail that to abuse@ and all other e-mail addresses they have. As for Paypal, not even sure what to tell you, never had problems like that, luckily.... Although "theoretically" one thing you can try and do is buy the eBook from him, and then claim that you were scammed or something sneaky like that.... Basically force them to think that he's a scammer and not just a copyright infringer. Best of luck mate.
If you use a bank account for illegal activity they shut the whole account down. They don't care that you pay your electric bill through that account. @ptwiggens - did you notice the link in my last post that had the copyright agent form (with phone number). I don't know if that phone number works, but it is there.
I saw the link... thank you for posting. I'm going to contact an attorney and see if they will take it since the host is ignoring the complaint and there is a good bit of money to be had for them doing that. As for the bank account... I don't know a way for me to acquire the information necessary to complain to the bank. What's really funny is that he has been asking advice on other forums under the pretense that a customer had bought his book and copyrighted it. I actually own 2 copyrights for the book... one that I made a month or two before it was released, and another that I made after it was released. (released in dec. 07) From what I've gathered he isn't going to counternotice the DMCA that has already been acted on.
Sorry, the first part of my post was directed at Mike who used the argument that Paypal would not shut down the account because he might use it for other things. They might not shut it down until you have a judgement saying this guy participated in illegal copyright infringement using his paypal account. I don't know what they require to shut down an account, but the first part wasn't really directed at you pt. Something else you can try, if you know what ISP he uses to connect to the internet, you could send a notice to them. They might cut off his access to the internet (at least from his house and until he finds another provider).
I do not see Paypal involve in anything except as a third party payment processor. Just try sending them a nice email explaining the situation rather than a DMCA because for such large corporations, once you go legal with them, it is legal all the way. This will be extremely expensive and helps no one.