How are copyright infringement cases handled in court? Procedures?

[MaxiSiagga]

This is from a story.

The main character of a story (a writer) is found guilty of infringing and plagiarizing the works of another author VERBATIM. So I want to know how this would play out in court.

Basically this is what happens:

The author, Dennis, writes a novel but isn't able to find a publishing deal and decides to register his manuscript with the Library of Congress anyway for copyright reasons. Two years later the main character, Jay, comes along and steals Dennis' novel, copies everything word-for-word and decides to pass the novel off as his own to a publisher and receives a publishing deal in the process.
Fast forward a few weeks later and Dennis finds out about this and decides to sue. Now, in court, the copyright registration document of Dennis' manuscript with the Library of Congress easily proves that Dennis came up with the idea for the novel and wrote the novel himself.

This evidence is enough for the judge to find Jay guilty of:

• wilful copyright infringement for profit which is a federal crime
• fraud (attempting to gain from the works of others)
• attempting to commit a federal crime, which is also a federal crime
• felony perjury for claiming ownership of a manuscript that he didn't write—which is a wilful and deliberate violation of the copyright law.

But also keep in mind that Jay hasn't received an advance from the publishing house yet (takes few weeks to process).
Also, Dennis doesn't show up to court (only his lawyer does) as he is out of the country and is confident his lawyer will handle everything for him. So anyway Dennis' lawyer also argues that Jay's theft of Dennis' novel and the entire trial caused emotional damage to Dennis as the novel was 'very personal' to him.
The judge hands Jay 3 years in prison along with a fine of $7 000 for 'emotional damage'.

So here comes my question. How realistic is this kind of scenario? I mean there was no jury involved in the decision making and the judge made the decision by himself to sentence Jay to prison as the evidence and crime committed is straight forward. It's only a story but could this happen the way I explained it in real life? And how about Dennis not showing up to court? The trial would continue anyway right? Dennis doesn't need to give a testimony or anything. The fact that he wrote the manuscript and registered it with the Library of Congress is right there on the copyright registration document in black and white.

NOTE: Story is set in New York City.

 

[fredrikklaw]

How realistic is the scenario and could it happen in real life? Absolutely and positively not and let me elaborate!

First off, you have not just a 2-way, but a whopping and quite unprecedented 3-way cross-over case sounding in Contracts, Torts, and Criminal Law which by and itself is not so much of realistic as it is highly improbable and dare I say impossible. Because while a Contacts-Torts cross-over case may be litigated in the same court room and with one presiding judge overseeing proceedings, there can never be a Torts-Criminal, or a Contracts-Criminal cross-over case.

A criminal case comes into being and subsequently prosecuted by the combined efforts of the locale's police and the District Attorney who will prosecute the case on behalf of the people of that state. In other words, a private person cannot instigate and prosecute criminal cases. Even presuming for a moment that criminal charges are brought to bear, there would be no possible way the Judge would send the defendant to prison for copyright infringement of a novel. The other unrealistic aspect of your scenario is nature and quality of the causes of action; there are no such causes of action.

And as to your question re: a judge deciding a case on his own and without a jury! A jury is selected and tasked to decide the case based on the facts only and are neither permitted nor called on to decide a question of law, which is the where the judge comes in. A judge can decide a case when there are only questions of law and the he-said-she-said allegations of the case are sent to the jury.

Last but not least; a plaintiff can be absent from the court for a reasonable amount and for goof cause while his attorney handles the case but should endeavor to be sitting next to his attorney's in court as soon as possible.

All in all, such a case in real life would not see the inside of a court room.