Today I decided to respond to the funniest legal threat I have had in such a long time. I have had many, some have gone to lawyers, some have even got to court but all have never went any place because ultimately the person pointing the finger knows my company has not deliberately done anything wrong and always acts reasonably and responsibly.
Now here is the thing and I will say this up front, I don’t like people stealing other peoples content and when I see my content stolen I will write a straight forward request for it’s removal, will keeping my right to take legal action. I find the majority of people remove the content without to much fuss. But this guy who’s name I will conceal as I am for protecting the venerable in society as this guy clearly is, has no idea on how to write a reasonable letter he could later use in court.
A bit of background before you read the emails, the site he is making the complaint about is a site that provides information and support online for anyone affected by the death of a baby during pregnancy, at birth, or shortly afterwards. My company UK Internet Sites Ltd has hosted this site completely for free since around 2000. And the copyright infringing that is talked about here is a lady who’s child died and she left a dedication to the child with a poem allegedly written by the guy that emailed us.
He emails us via a Hotmail account and sends a copy to our upstream host each time as well as the site owner. Look at the times he emails in, the words he is using, the spelling errors. Anyone reasonable would expect a poet to have a good grasp of the English language. He also provides no proof or PDF talked about in the 1st email.
1st Email
Date: Sat, 12 Sep 2009 12:48:07
Subject: Notice of Copyright referenceSir, Madam,
Unlicensed illegal use and display of registered copyright material United Nations UK USA European Copyright Law Registration Numbers TXu *-***-*** TXu *-***-*** and ****** detected by Plagiarism Detector
“I have a good faith belief that use of the copyrighted materials described below as allegedly infringing is not authorised by myself as copyright owner, or the law.”
“I swear, under penalty of perjury, that the information in the notification is accurate and that I am the copyright owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.”
The material is currently illegally clearly displayed on your servers without my requested or given author/owner consent. It must be removed as in line with copyright law and host master Terms of Service United Nations Europe UK and USA 2006/2007
If signed copy of this notice is required by your company I will email one today via PDF attachment (identical as fax) for you to view/print.
*************
*NOTE the thief had clearly ignored anti theft protection as legal copyright notice and licensing notice hacked into a file source code or typed this out to steal the material.
Material displayed as below on your servers Poet ********* ****** Copyright Notice NOT public domain strictly not for copy public use or any form of display without registered licence
2nd Email
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 2009 12:43:33
Subject: FIFTH ISSUED LEGAL Notice of Copyright referenceCriminal action is now being taken against site owner and host master alike with risk of imprisonment as penalty
With respect,
Death of anyone is not an excuse for breach of the law, keep ignoring we’ll have you arrested
Unlicensed illegal use and display of registered copyright material United Nations UK USA European Copyright Law Registration Numbers TXu *-***-*** TXu *-***-*** and ******
This means European USA and UK Government will take legal action if the matter is not resolved swiftly. It is a criminal offence for such material to be transmitted back into Europe USA or UK by any server owner let alone a site owner
Data theft is no different by law to shop lifting and a host master and site owner are no different to someone handling stolen goods whether aware of the matter or not
With Respect
3rd Email
Date: Wed, 16 Sep 2009 00:37:09
Subject: crimninal action failure to anwser or acknowledge copyright noticemark my words site owners and host master alike will face crimninal action failure to anwser or acknowledge a notice of copyright is itself a crime
4th Email
Sent: Wednesday, September 16, 2009 2:11 AM
Subject: FW: crimninal action failure to anwser or acknowledge copyright noticeI AM GOING TO BOUNCE ********.COM and host masters THROUGH EVERY GLOBAL COURT IN THE WORLD SHUT THEM DOWN AND SEE SITE OWNERS IMRPISONED IF THIS IS IGNORED ONE MORE TIME
Now This Is My Reply To Him on the 16th September.
WITHOUT PREJUDICE
Hello Christopher, it has been established that an internet provider cannot be seen as publishers of content on websites they host and do not actively monitor, if you had visited a lawyer they would have told you this and would have stopped you from sending poorly written, falsely accusing, threatening emails at midnight and 2 am.
In matters of alleged copyright theft it is your job to go to court to prove you are in fact the original copyright holder and ask the court to send us a legal request for the removal of the alleged text. We have no way of knowing who is the original copyright holder and cannot get involved in disputes unless we have been legally instructed by a court to do so. We have no legal obligation to respond to your email as anyone can open up a Hotmail account and pretend they own something that they do not. I will, out of courtesy, contact the site owner and ask them if they would kindly remove the post by one of their users however they are under no legal obligation to act on an email from ourselves.
We trust that this amounts to a sufficient explanation of our position and that the matter may be regarded as closed.
In the meantime, this letter is written entirely without prejudice to our whole rights and pleas, and is not to be founded upon in any litigation, administrative procedure or other quasi-judicial proceedings of whatever nature, save with our prior written consent.
Yours faithfully,
Clarke Duncan
UK Internet Sites Ltd
http://www.ukinternetsites.com
And he still writes back after that email, with the following.
5th Email
Date: Wed, 16 Sep 2009 14:15:04
Subject: RE: crimninal action failure to anwser or acknowledge copyright noticeWhat do you think this is
Unlicensed illegal use and display of registered copyright material United Nations UK USA European Copyright Law Registration Numbers TXu *-***-*** TXu *-***-*** and ******
This means you have failed to understand and acknowledge the law
6th Email
Sent: Wednesday, September 16, 2009 3:03 PM
Subject: RE: crimninal action failure to anwser or acknowledge copyright noticeUS and UK Government will now be in touch with you directly
An official complaint of theft and piracy has also now been lodged with UK Police
Government Copyright Law Registration Numbers TXu *-***-*** TXu *-***-*** and ******
This means you have failed to understand and acknowledge the law
LOL I can see it now,
999: “999 Emergency how can I direct your call?”
Whack Job: “Hi, yes I like to report a grieving mother for posting a dedication to her dead baby using one of my poems, I have already contacted the US and UK Government and I want you to storm the hosting company HQ and arrest all the staff” 
Seriously we are just a tiny hosting company, we hardly have any customers as it’s not our main business any more, so what are the big guys getting on a daily basis if this is the whack jobs we get. If the guy had half a brain he should have wrote to the site and said “Hey look, one of your users has posted one of my poems, I know she is grieving for her loss and I feel for her but it is my copyright. Would you either remove this or add my copyright statement with a link back to my original poem at my site” … feck if I could get links like that, I would be writing to everyone saying, yeah keep the content just give me credit and link back to me, I would be an online millionaire that way 
So their you have it, it’s all in a days work for me to deal with these types of people.
* I have removed names etc and replaced with ***** just because I am not in the game of pointing fingers back.
All in a days work!!!
hahahah. Absolute class!
I run ukcheaphosts.com and I had a similar issue recently where one of my clients was being accused of copying content and some muppet was writing to me as the host telling me he would sue me and that I would be plastered all over the internet.
Maybe its the same guy.
hahahhahaa.