Think I am in BIG trouble from the U.S. copyright office ...

About a year ago I bought a package of digital products from ebay. I created a sales letter and sold the package through clickbank.

I just got a call recently from the U.S. copyright office saying that they were sending agents over this week to discuss over 300 copyright violations!!! As soon as I got the voicemail, I took the offending site offline.

I've been trying to call their office today but all the lines are busy! What do I do, am I screwed??? I am scared as hell.

The odd thing is that the voice mail sounded like a non-human voice. Is there a possibility that the voice mail was a prank? But it left the number of the U.S. copyright office. Ah!!

 

Have they sent you anything in writing? If you're in that much trouble that's usually what would happen first. Be careful with voicemails - most legal issues always include a letter outlining any of the things they feel you've violated. It's far too easy to manipulate the caller id function and you want to make sure you're actually dealing with who they claim to be.

Most law enforcement agencies don't warn you they're coming - they just show up. So this sounds a bit odd to me.

 

Hopefully it was a prank call but like Ian said, they should've sent you something in writing.

 

another thing to note: they left a voicemail on my cell phone ... kind of odd, huh? i don't think my whois shows my cell phone.

EDIT: nvm, just checked my WHOIS does have my cell phone listed.

 

That's just bizarre. I would ignore it until you get something in the mail. But in the meantime it wouldn't hurt to review whatever it is that you're selling and make sure you're within compliance of all terms of service and that you're not using any trademarked terms, logos, etc.

 

Can I ask do you still sell via ebay also?

If you do then one of your buyers could have requested your phone number and sent you that message to scare you off as MAYBE they are thinking of selling the products themselves but this could be a hunch though. Things like this does and can happen within sellers on clickbank/ebay but do your homework first just incase it is a agency to "bust" you.

Im in the UK but I know any copyright legal case would be approached by letter first then chashed up wth calls but calls are very rare as they are so time consuming with hardly any results.

I doubt any agency in any country would call you to say "hey I suspect you of selling copyrighted goods and ill be around in a day or two to have a chat" so I wouldnt stress yourself out to much but dont forget about it just incase. Agencys would call you with a human rather than a recorded message, im not sure about USA but im the UK we cant leave a message stating what its about incase somebody else hears the message before youself.

 

The voice sounded semi-electronic, like someone with a smoke whole in their neck, but it sounded very legit.

"Hi this is Katreni Greghor, I am calling from the us copyright office this is about your website **********
We are going to be sending some agents over by the end of the week to discuss over 300 copyright violations that have been reported to us. If you have any questions, please call us back 202-707-3000."

It is possible they could have sent me mail because my whois address is my old dorm room which I no longer live in.

I don't sell via ebay, only CB.

 

That number looks legitimate - but "sending agents" sounds bizarre. As I said, most law enforcement agencies I know of don't warn you they're coming - they just show up. I guess if your mailing address doesn't match where you currently reside, it's not a bad idea to try and call them back and proceed from there. In these situations you always want to be proactive.

Good luck. Let us know how this turns out.

 

The phone call was legit. I called back the number that left the voicemail, it was an extension of the office's number.

The odd thing is that my voice mail information dates the message to January 6th. That was 7 months ago.

Well, now that I know this is legit .. what should I do?

 

As I said, if your address is no longer where you reside, and since we know the number is legitimate, I would probably call them and talk to them. Again - better to be proactive. Odds are pretty good if you ignore them it may only make things worse.

 

I think the question on everyone's mind is did you actually commit copyright violations? The material that you were selling; did you have the resell rights to sell it?

What can you do? Well, did you actually make any sales through CB? If so, I would refund the customers and keep all the documentation.

Good luck

Kevin

 

In my mind - no. I bought the package on ebay, and the seller on ebay assured that I had the resell rights. I even kept all of the seller information and the ebay sales page. The seller is still selling things today. I remember, when I first bought the package, asking the seller before buying the package if the resell rights were for real and she said yes. I then again contacted her recently to ask her if the resell rights were for real and if she could give evidence, and I got no response.

I did make sales on clickbank, quite a lot over the past year. I don't have nearly enough money to refund all of the purchases.

The package contains incredibly old ebooks, web templates and software ...

What's the worst case scenario here?

ugh I just know my life is going to get a lot worse from here on out.

 

I wouldn't worry until they show up at your house. These threats are all over the place, i get mail and emails full of them and nothing happens afterwards. Don't get paranoid cause then your showing weakness, just act like you did nothing wrong and move on with life.

 

I would tell you to be easy until they show up and when they do you would point to the seller, if you are not at wrong then don not worry and keep your calm. Getting hyper will bring more suspicion be easy and let it work. And they are just claims not concrete proofs of any crime.

 

don't you have the number that the voice mail came from? On my phone it shows the number from where the voice mail was left!

Call him back and say 'Gotcha! I am suing you for scaring the shi! out of me. I'm also sending 10 of my elite lawyers to get you! Either get the hell out of there or close my case '

 

Well, one thing is for sure - I am going to stop selling that package.

Do you really get legitimate emails from the U.S. copyright office that you ignore?

Read my post. It WAS legitimate. But the call was made in January - 7 months ago. What does that say? Could the case have been dropped since I didn't get contacted by anyone since then? Don't ask me how I didn't get it until now, I was just checking my voice mails and it was in there.

Is it in my best interest to contact the U.S. copyright office?

 

well, if they said that some officials were coming to your house that weekend... and none showed up until 6-7months after! I'll atleast not sweat it. May be call the office and ask if there are any open cases on your SSN or TAX-ID number or your ebay selling account number.

I think that should be it.
Now go get a glass of beer and settle down bro!

 

Ok, I am starting to calm down here.

I did a google search for the package that I bought and I found tons of sites selling the same package. Even on ebay:
http://www.webbuilder.booksebase.com/
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=120428438186
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=270376677001
http://www.ioffer.com/i/13GB-WEB-TEMPLATE-PACKAGE-flash-psd-logos-images-55603306
http://www.webtemplateslab.info/index2.html

Could it be that the copyright violations reported were not correct? If so than what really are the legitimate origins of this package? Or are we all selling warez unknowingly :x?

 

I have seen this package and they are all downloads from themakemoneyshop all rolled into one, on the website they openly promote reseller rights on 99.9% of the products and simply make money from people referring others and hopefully upgrading from a free account (with a few downloads) to a monthly "gold" which has everything and much more!

I maybe wouldn't worry to much but use it as a learning curve and maybe move on!

The only thing that might be a bit naughty is that every one of those packages and been passed from server to server, from pc to pc and when people go to sell a package they often slip in a few other website templates/ebooks and these wouldn't have reseller rights and maybe your package had something copyrighted from your buy off of ebay thats your seller just chucked in as a "bonus"


Could be wrong though, but I have seen this with a ebook called thesecretcode" which was protected and a seller on ebay got into a lot of trouble for selling it.

 

OMG I'm hating this reputation thingy.

This post, was supposed to be funny to Cheer the OP, because he looked so stressed out, and someone gave my post a negative reputation saying 'I can hardly imagine a more idiotic response! ' WFT.

That took away 5 reputation points