How Not to Write a Cease-and-Desist Letter

In our overly litigious society it seems that many companies are all too happy to fire off a cease-and-desist letter if they see something they don't like. Many times these letters end up online just causing further embarrassment for the company. One such company has decided to try scaring their targets out of this response by including a copyright notice for their cease-and-desist letter. Public Citizen has fielded one of these dumb letters and has invited them to try to assert their cease-and-desist copyright (which isn't even registered).

Comments

Re:Good idea / bad idea

[David Gerard]

Yes. It's amazing how good a response you can get by asking nicely and not being a dick about something.

*READ BEFORE POSTING PLEASE*

[drachenfyre]

1. You do not need to register a copyright in the US to enforce it.
2. You DO need to register it before pursuing legal action in the US AND damages are limited to actual damages, not statutory damages. Legal fees expended in defending the copyright are also ineligible to be claimed in this case.

There are about 50 posts in this thread already going back and forth on this point and it's really clouding up what is a good discussion.

Re:*READ BEFORE POSTING PLEASE*

[evanbd]

From its content alone, your post is completely indistinguishable from any other post by someone who claims to know how copyright works in the US. It should be obvious that just because you know you're right, that doesn't mean the rest of us can tell that just because you sound certain about it. So, please post a link to a reputable reference, rather than just adding another post going back and forth on the issue and clouding up the discussion.

(FWIW, I think you're right about this. But it would add a lot more to the discussion if you could actually include a reference.)