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Lawyers seek to muzzle bloggers by use of ©

January 26, 2008

The US District Court in Idaho has decided that lawyers can copyright their demand letters. The decision means that bloggers wont be able to post cease and desist letters on their blogs if the lawyer remembered to include a valid copyright notice. Look forward to seeing more ‘©’ on your legal correspondence.

According to Dozier, “The Court, in its decision, found that a copyright had been adequately established in a lawyer’s cease and desist letter. The unauthorized publication of the letter, therefore, can expose the publisher to liability. Statutory damages under the US Copyright Act can be as much as $150,000 per occurrence plus attorneys’ fees that can average $750,000 through trial. The publisher of the letter raised First Amendment and “fair use” arguments without success.”

Hm… I need to get out my Blacks Law Dictionary so I can recall what constitutes fair use.  Update: Joe Gratz spent some time reading the actual decision and determined that the court DIDN’T agree that it was permissible to copyright a boilerplate legal document.  In fact, the court suggested that they wouldn’t get into the merits of the copyright, instead focusing on whether or not the lawyers could force a website to reveal the identity of an anonymous poster.  Check out the full post here.  

Written by Alexander Muse · Filed Under Blog, Politics 

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