[Fredslist] Need a copyright/IP attorney

[Glenn Dekhayser]

Hello Gotham!

 

My father-in-law has 8 math 'helper' books published through a major
publisher (that also owns a business credit ratings service, but for now
shall remain nameless).  The series is called the "Calc for the
Clueless" series. (and they're quite good if anyone needs extra help for
GRE/SAT, etc, but I digress).

 

It seems that some time ago, against my Dad's wishes, they published
some if not all of his books in "e-book" format, for those who wanted to
buy the book but read it on their PC. 

 

So, we find out this week that the electronic version of his books have
been circulating the internet, freely downloadable, in their original
"PDF" format as published- with NO copy protection, NO restrictions on
printing, .  Also, these files have been circulating the web, sometimes
on sites that actually advertise and summarize the books and allow free
downloads!  Even when they started this in the 2002-2003 timeframe,
there were methods available to protect digital content, but the
publisher apparently chose not to.

 

Needless to say, my dad is distraught as the sales of these books have
been inexplicably dropping the past few years, after a steady 15 year
run of growth.  Now it seems we know why.  Why buy the cow, right?

 

So I am looking for a specialist in Copyright/Intellectual
Property/Publishing law who can go after the publisher here on two
matters:  a) We believe the publisher did not perform their due
diligence and acted negligently in protecting the copyright originally,
when they published it in a non-protected format that made it child's
play to copy, forward, and distribute; and b) We believe the publisher
is not currently performing their due diligence in protecting the
copyright on an ongoing basis, as there is evidence of easily-found
sites that have had my dad's work up there for free, illegally, since
2003 (you can just google the titles, for cryin' out loud, and have his
books in minutes.)

 

Both have caused him irreparable harm to future and past income, as it
will be impossible to destroy all illegal copies of the book on the
internet.  Unlike music/mp3's, books are not easily 'ripped' into
digital format for public consumption, the publisher has to actively do
that, and this publisher's choice and method are what caused the harm.
So we don't think that Dad is in the same boat as the music industry,
who ships digitally-formatted music on CD's and through iTunes.

 

So I know that's kind of long, but if there's anyone in Gotham that
wants to take a stab at this and thinks we have a case, please contact
me.   Or if we don't have a case, please let me know that too.  

 

Thanks in advance!

 

 

Glenn Dekhayser

Vice President, Technology

Voyant Strategies, Inc.

45 Village Court

Hazlet, NJ 07730

(800) 463-7920 x514

Fax: (732) 810-0378

IM: gdekhayser on AIM, Yahoo Messenger, and Google Chat

 

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