Reply #75: i think it's different when you sue first and ask questions later.

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properly, you find a copyright violation at one website. you ask them nicely to remove. if they fail to comply you ask them firmly and threaten to sue. if they fail again, after you've given AT LEAST this much warning, then and only then you sue.

if you sue 96 companies without saying boo first, that's a different matter because it shows clearly that you're not even trying to achieve any kind of resolution.


moreover, democraticunderground has what i think is a reasonable defense, namely, that they can't possibly PREVENT postings its members that violate copyrights, but that it has a responsible mechanism (the alert feature) that calls moderators' attention to an offending post, and a strong track record of removing copyright-violating posts quickly after an alert.

as far as we know, no one from the plaintiff's company logged on and alerted any offending post. to me, it's pretty damning if they didn't even avail themselves of a free and easy way to make the problem go away, nevermind if they didn't send a warning letter.