Lets say someone I know purchased a package of articles, content, databases etc. and was told they had master resell rights to the content. Lets then say that person then advertised some of these products for sale and gave some people review links. Lets then say she was contacted by someone who got the review package and told her that they own the copyrights to the material. She then took down the link immediately, deleted the material etc. My friend and the other supposed copyright holder live in different countries. How screwed is my friend?
If it was me, I'm not going to get overly concerned until this person can come up with some proof that it's their copywritten material. Just because someone says "Hey, I own that" via an email, doesn't mean it's true. Get some proof and go from there.
It depends on the countries involved. It also depends on whether this other person actually holds the copyright to the work. And the most important is what do you mean by screwed? If you are referring to the money that he paid for the package, then he is probably out of luck. If he charged it via credit card he could try a chargeback. If it was through paypal, they won't do anything because it is intangible goods. If you are referring to how screwed is he if the original copyright holder decides to do anything about it, that will depend on several factors. If your friend is in the US, for example, it will depend on whether the other person filed for copyright or just has it by default. If he did not register, then at most he would get actual damages (not much). If he did, then their could be statutory damages as well. However, I feel that most judges would likely be very lenient as there was good faith the product had rights attached and the content was removed immediately after contact. More likely, the other person will let it go from here. The question is, though, does that person really have copyright or did they buy the package too and are trying to eliminate competion through intimidation? I would contact the seller of the pack and ask for details about the articles in question.
Screwed as in will my friend suffer severe legal actions. As far as I know the material was copyrighted in the UK. What amount are statutory damages?
You are responsible for making sure you have usage rights to use any material on your site. Buying work from someone who tells you that you can use it means nothing if they were not the copyright holder - which is why you need to be extremely careful about putting any content on your site that you did not create. Damages can vary, but with images, the owner basically gets to get a usage fee - and fees of several thousand per image are not uncommon. They copyright holder can sue you, and then you could try and sue the person who sold you the content - although you are ultimately responsible for paying damages.
In the UK, there is no official copyright process. This doesn't mean things aren't copyrighted, it just means there is no division of damages like there are in the US. Statutory damages are damages above and beyond actual loss of revenue. I don't know what they could be in the UK. In the US they can be in the tens of thousands (but generally only for those that are shown to be gross violators of intellectual property law, which I would say is not the case here). The fact that the two people are in two different countries doesn't matter much as both countries are likely part of the international copyright treaties (the UK is and if the other country is the US then it is too). When I talked about lenient judges in my previous post, I was mainly referring to statutory damages. Actual damages would be awarded regardless.
This is why I made a few comments last year on the buy / sell forum asking sellers of 'plr packs' to prove they owned the rights. None of them could. In the end I gave up because they just kept on coming.