Comments on: We Connect The Dots So You Don’t Have To https://booksquare.com/we-connect-the-dots-so-you-dont-have-to/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&%23038;utm_campaign=we-connect-the-dots-so-you-dont-have-to Dissecting the publishing industry with love and skepticism Wed, 23 Mar 2005 17:02:26 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 By: Booksquare https://booksquare.com/we-connect-the-dots-so-you-dont-have-to/#comment-44377 Wed, 23 Mar 2005 17:02:26 +0000 http://www.booksquare.com/archives/2005/03/21/1113/#comment-44377 Yes, agreed that actual damages, if awarded, would have been substantial. By all accounts (that I can find), Wilson failed to register his copyright in a timely manner, and therefore filed in the wrong court (that’s some bad lawyering or advice somewhere). However, the actual merits of the case (the alleged plagiarism) would not have been changed if he’d proceeded in the correct court. All that would have changed would have been the money.

This leads me to conclude, as you have, that something else was going on.

]]> By: Bill Lindsley https://booksquare.com/we-connect-the-dots-so-you-dont-have-to/#comment-44337 Wed, 23 Mar 2005 14:29:20 +0000 http://www.booksquare.com/archives/2005/03/21/1113/#comment-44337 I concur that the articles raise many questions. While “actual damages” are usually not much and difficult to prove, for this kind of book, with revenues in the millions, and particularly for material allegedly used in the promotional materials, it seems like they would be substantial, perhaps more than the statutory damages available if the copyright was timely registered prior to the infringement. I suspect the case was either weak on the merits or Wilson failed to register before filing the lawsuit. None of the articles are clear in this regard. The suggestion that the court was poised to make a ruling that would have a broad, negative impact on authors of Internet content is disconcerting, but I doubt there is cause for panic. Something else had to be going on here.

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