My doll design was copied by another doll maker in a different medium. She has acknowledged that my work was her inspiration but says that there is no infringement because hers are done in crochet work and mine are sewn. Now she has changed her story and says she created these dolls 11 years ago and sold them to a big pattern company. I contacted the pattern company and they acknowledged that she sold them a doll design with patterns in 1993, but not for the items in question and have no such work in their database. So it’s true that they do have a doll design from this person, but not for the ones in question. She is now giving the patterns for these dolls away for free on her blog, as a download.

I have good reason to believe she copied my work when she saw it for sale on a website 9 years ago. She has admitted to seeing the dolls on the site, (why are these stories so complicated?) and even told me that she missed out on purchasing one, at the time. The only reason this person is even on my radar is because she contacted me to tell me how much she loved my work, and then posted photos of her new dolls which look like mine, onto the Flickr site.

This person is a fairly well known crochet designer. At first, she told me said she made the dolls in question recently but now has changed her story to add enough time to put them in advance of the time frame when I began selling them through the website (2001). (The only published photos of these particular dolls of hers are from 2008 and the new versions, from 2010) These dolls of hers look nothing like any of the other work in her portfolio, all of which look quite similar.

I have plenty of documentation for the original work which was actually done several years prior to when she saw them and several years before photos of my original works were ever on the web, a miniature version was presented to a major fast food company in hopes of licensing for a kid’s meal toy premium, which was declined.

Photos of both works, (mine and her knock offs), placed side by side show disturbing similarities and could be mistaken for the same product to the average person. Do I have a case? Is it worth pursuing?

I live in San Diego and searching for a copyright attorney that can do a few things for me for my start up business. I was considering doing it myself but after talking with several different firms I’ve decided this is something I don’t want to screw up. Can anyone tell me the going rate for an attorney to handle copyrighting in California more specifically an attorney in the San Diego area? Thanks so much for your help!

I have noticed that much of my website content I use is being used through RSS feeds and sometimes just straight high jacking from my website. I go to contact these people and there is no contact information, about us pages etc. Essentially there is no way to contact these people. I’ve got to think this is illegal. How do I go about getting them to take down the my content without having to hire an attorney? I have a little website that I run that only generates a few bucks a day so its not like I have the money to hire an attorney. Please let me know what I should do?

I run a local guide service for hunting in Texas. For the last 8 months I have been running the property with no problems or complaints. I run a very clean business and have a lot of clients. Recently we decided to focus all our efforts on to one piece of property that we lease from a landowner. So we dropped all our other properties and only had this one. We did have a contract until the last day of August. The new contract wasn’t to be signed until right before this years deer hunting season which starts Nov 7th 2009. We had lots of verbal agreements to continue the hog hunting until the new contract was signed. So we continued until just the other day, the land owner emailied us alleging that we and our hunters left trash on the property, which is false. We always pick up after us and the hog hunters. We have had hunters booked for the next few weeks and one group in Feb 2010, the hunters paid deposits that we can’t refund because we used the money for this months feed on the property. Now the landowner has started his own guide service business, and we will not be able to honor our clients hunts unless we give the landowner our stands and feeders, or pay him the other half of the deposit which we don’t have. We have offered him to work the hunts anyways and he still refuses. Now I have been searching the web looking for his advertisements and seeing how long ago he has been advertising. Well I found pictures that we use on our website on his advertisements. This pictures clearly have our guide service name on them, and he is still using them. Is there any legal action that can be taken place for all of this, including copyright laws. I do have Print screen pictures of his ads using our pictures.

Hi, I have pasted a part of my contract below this question. I signed a contract with publish america. They have now cancelled my book. My question is, according to this contract does the rights of the book go back to me so I can find another publisher? Or do they still have all the rights to the book? Notwithstanding the reversion of publishing rights to Author, Author’s remaining obligations to Publisher, including the warranties and indemnifications provided in paragraph 23 shall survive the discontinuation of the book pursuant to this paragraph.
23. Warranties and Indemnification: The Author covenants and represents that the Work contains no matter that, when published, will incite prejudice, amount to an invasion of privacy, be libelous, obscene, or otherwise unlawful, or which will infringe upon any proprietary interest at common law, trademark, trade secret, patent or copyright; that the Author is the sole proprietor of the Work and all parts thereof (or has obtained all necessary permissions), has reached the age of majority and has full power to make and perform this grant and agreement, and that the Work is free of any lien, claim, charge or debt of any kind, and that the Author and his legal successors and/or representatives will hold harmless and keep indemnified the Publisher
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from all manner of claims, proceeding and expenses, including attorneys’ fees, which may be taken or incurred by Publisher on the ground that the covenants above are not true or that the Work is subject to any such lien, claim, charge or debt, or that it is such violation, or that it contains anything defamatory or illegal.

copy right law.i am an exsperiance artist that also collects baseball cards.i like to paint a baseball card i got and then sell it.the card is copy righted by upper deck.i am not going to use there name no where.i well be painting the picture as close as i can of the card and then try to sell it.am i breaking any laws.

My partner and I are going to form a business developing new innovative products for a particular industry. He is currently employed by a company that is in the same industry (although not a direct competitor to us). If my partner and I work from our homes (after hours, weekends, etc) on product development for our new business, can his current employer make any intellectual property claims against our organization? Some of the technology would carry over, although we would use it in a different application.
Is there any other risks of starting this business while he is still employed full time during the day? thank you

I would like to open a fast food delivery service, but need to know if it is legal. I would like to deliver for McDonald’s, or Burger King, and Taco Bell. There is not much to base it off of since no one has tried to deliver FOR them, so I need to know if it would be legal. I have got the runaround from pretty much everyone I know about this question. But I don’t want to walk into a legal trip.

People would call me and give me their order, I would pay for it, pick it up and deliver it.Then I would charge a small delivery fee, therefore not profiting off of the actual food but the delivery fee itself. Is that illegal? And if so, how would you know since no one else has done it?

This is a somewhat complicated issue, so i will split it up into parts.

1) Lets say Fred just created the “fred cube” (in this example, it is the same as the rubicks cube, but slightly harder), and has sold over 25000 of them. The only website dedicated to the Fred Cube is fredcube.com. Fred sells his cube at an outrageous price of 20$ each. There are also many retailers throughout the world that sell them for at least 20$/ea. I have a retailer friend -Bob- who is willing to sell me the Fred Cube for $5/ea. Am i allowed to resell (online) the Fred cube at 15$ each without permission from Bob and Fred himself? If i can’t what exactly are the issues and what penalties are involved?

2) Let’s say I am. It is very hard to solve the Fred Cube. But on FredCube.com , Fred made videos, diagrams, and PDF files visually explaining how to solve the Fred Cube. Can i upload Fred’s PDF files (which all have the official Fred Cube logo on it) onto my website’s directory and allow my buyers to upload his pdf files off my website without Fred’s permission? please note: Neither his website nor his pdf files nor the Fred Cube itself have a copyright logo on it.

If a person purchases fabric and a store open to the public, and it carrys a brand name logo, can you produce items for sale with it and sell them without recourse?