Another copyright problem

[Rick]

Hi!

I produce adult material for websites. I started doing this in germany and released the pictures and movies on north american webservers using the .com extension. I moved to america earlier this year.
Now the problem..... Nearly all my work (a lot) is used by other websites for their own content, for advertising or for selling it on CDs or whatever. When I try to contact any one of these violators, they mostly make threads agains me or just ignore my mails.
As I'm not sure if I have any copyrights here in the states, I don't know, if I really can do anything against this!? I talked to a lawyer allready, but he said that I do not have copyrights here inamerica... But I can't really believe this....... He was not qualified for copyrights.
I also tried to contact their hosts or their billing companies, but they all don't even think about helping me. - I also send them the DMCA but I allways get stupid answers. They allways tell me that this is not their problem..... I guess they just don't want to help me as they earn a lot of money from all these guys who use stolen material (nearly 95% of all adult sites contain stolen material that belongs to someone else). So there is no interest by anyone to keep them from making business as they make the most money on the net.
Anyway, I don't want them to use my material any longer! Maybe someone here can help me a bit and tell me what would be best form me to do!?

Regards, Rick
Ps. Please excuse my bad english......

 

[Michael Wechsler]

You have illustrated the problems that the Internet causes publishers en masse. Most of these porn sites couldn't care less about legal letters (especially from non-attorneys) and will challenge you until they are put in a bona fide position of liability. Even then, many of them are not concerned since they are fly by night operations and flee at the first sign of trouble.

Unfortunately, your situation involves a cost-benefit analysis. How much money are you willing to spend? How much money are they making as a result of your material? While there are statutory penalties, they may not be available to you and they are not what you want to rely upon. You may want to target the biggest offenders with the most lucrative and established web sites.

It is not true that you have no protections afforded you although you would benefit by filing a US copyright on the works you have produced, especially those that are most lucrative. Did the attorney mention the Berne Convention to you? Next is to find a lawyer that is willing to prosecute these companies and send legal letters to the hosts of the biggest offenders using the DMCA as you stated. Thus you can also recover from the hosts.

Be aware that I do not think that this is the kind of arrangement which a contingency fee will be offered to you. Copyright, trademark, and other intellectual property rights are areas that attorneys at TheLaw.com specialize if you are interested or feel free to ask for a referral.