eSignature Lawfulness for Cease and Desist Letter in United States

How to eSign a document: eSignature lawfulness for Cease and Desist Letter in United States

hello my name is john digiacomo i'm a copyright attorney and internet lawyer with revision legal which is an internet law firm and today i'd like to talk to you about what you should do when you receive a copyright cease and desist letter so you received a copyright cease and desist letter it's a pretty scary and frustrating experience and i'm hoping that these tips will help you to resolve your anxiety and to better understand where attorneys come from when they examine these issues so the first step to take is to identify the infringing content here you have to ask yourself what is the infringing content and where is the infringing content the question of what is is one of what is it is it yours or is it someone else's if it's not yours there may be additional defenses that apply the next question is where is it hosted is it on my server or is it on someone else's server if it's on your server and it's not your content additional defenses may apply such as the safe harbor which is under the digital money and copyright act the next question to ask yourself is is the content licensed if the content is properly licensed then there is no copyright infringement and again i say properly licensed because there's a difference between someone that believes that something is licensed and something that is actually properly licensed and you should speak to an attorney about that distinction if the content is not properly licensed then you should identify your applicable defenses and that's the next step identify your defenses defenses such as fair use parody estoppel or latches may apply to preclude a claim of copyright infringement these defenses are incredibly fact dependent for example fair use is not an easy analysis it is based on case law within a specific circuit and within a specific factual scenario so it is very important that you consult with an attorney to identify these defenses for you and to provide you with an analysis of your risk with regard to asserting these various defenses the last thing to do and we just spoke about it is to hire a copyright lawyer to respond to the cease and desist letter of course it sounds like i'm trying to upsell you but it is important to have an attorney respond to a cease and desist letter for various reasons number one like we discussed because defenses are fact dependent the second and really the most important is that copyright infringement carries with it in the modern era statutory damages of up to a hundred and fifty thousand dollars per work infringed and cost and attorneys fees in some exceptional cases actually not just in exceptional cases in cases where a party is the prevailing party so it's important that you contact a copyright attorney that's well versed in the law to help you navigate these problems a copyright attorney will identify your defenses and identify non-legal leverage as well as legal leverage to assert in that response letter in an attempt to stave off a copyright infringement lawsuit and that's very important that's what you want to do with the initial response letter so again my name is john digiacomo i'm a copyright attorney with revision legal if you have any questions feel free to contact us thank you and have a great day