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Ask HN: $500,000 of copyright infringement on Envato, what to do?

21 points by yani ↗ HN
I have a product that was sold on Envato to 12,000 people for $39 by someone I do not know.

I have contacted Envato about it and they asked me to fill a DMCA claim because they say they are a platform.

I did a bit of my own research and it seems that Envato is not a safe harbour (https://www.pc.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0011/194744/sub080-intellectual-property.pdf).

What should I do next? Seek legal counsel for statutory damages?

11 comments

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provlem
Here are things you should do -

1. Fill a DMCA claim

2. Inform author

3. File a lawsuit - amount is huge ( 12,000 * 39 = 468000$ ), I don't see any reason, why you should not.

I would like to follow, what are other people opinion on this.

techjuice
You should talk with a lawyer to see what your legal options are.
staticautomatic
You should definitely speak to an attorney. You may well be able to find one who will take the case on contingency since there are statutory damages but unfortunately you probably won't have the carrot of statutory attorney fees to dangle unless you registered the copyrights prior to the infringement.
saluki
wow, first of all talk to a lawyer.

Second, how much have your own sales of your product totaled up to?

Just curious if it's a similar amount, more or less and what channels you are selling through.

Third, You might want to try get setup selling it on Envato. Sounds like it would be financially beneficial for both of you.

Congrats on a great product.

saluki
Clarification both of you, is you and Envato. Interested to hear what success you were having elsewhere vs what the thief was able to do on Envato.
yani
The product is making more sales than what was sold on Envato. I don't find Envato a better place to sell my products because of their fees (Non-Exclusive Author Fee 55%): https://help.author.envato.com/hc/en-us/articles/36000047294...
saluki
wow, congrats. follow up here and let us know how this shakes out. That's a lot of sales for someone else's product. I wonder how often this happens.