This is from a story.
The main character of a story (a writer) is found guilty of infringing and plagiarizing the works of another author VERBATIM. So I want to know how this would play out in court.
Basically this is what happens:
The author, Dennis, writes a novel but isn’t able to find a publishing deal and decides to register his manuscript with the Library of Congress anyway for copyright reasons. Two years later the main character, Jay, comes along and steals Dennis’ novel, copies everything word-for-word and decides to pass the novel off as his own to a publisher and receives a publishing deal in the process.
Fast forward a few weeks later and Dennis finds out about this and decides to sue. Now, in court, the copyright registration document of Dennis’ manuscript with the Library of Congress easily proves that Dennis came up with the idea for the novel and wrote the novel himself.
This evidence is enough for the judge to find Jay guilty of:
• wilful copyright infringement for profit which is a federal crime
• fraud (attempting to gain from the works of others)
• attempting to commit a federal crime, which is also a federal crime
• felony perjury for claiming ownership of a manuscript that he didn’t write—which is a wilful and deliberate violation of the copyright law.
But also keep in mind that Jay hasn’t received an advance from the publishing house yet (takes few weeks to process).
Also, Dennis doesn’t show up to court (only his lawyer does) as he is out of the country and is confident his lawyer will handle everything for him. So anyway Dennis’ lawyer also argues that Jay’s theft of Dennis’ novel and the entire trial caused emotional damage to Dennis as the novel was ‘very personal’ to him.
The judge hands Jay 3 years in prison along with a fine of $7 000 for ‘emotional damage’.
So here comes my question. How realistic is this kind of scenario? I mean there was no jury involved in the decision making and the judge made the decision by himself to sentence Jay to prison as the evidence and crime committed is straight forward. It’s only a story but could this happen the way I explained it in real life? And how about Dennis not showing up to court? The trial would continue anyway right? Dennis doesn’t need to give a testimony or anything. The fact that he wrote the manuscript and registered it with the Library of Congress is right there on the copyright registration document in black and white.
NOTE: Story is set in New York City.
The main character of a story (a writer) is found guilty of infringing and plagiarizing the works of another author VERBATIM. So I want to know how this would play out in court.
Basically this is what happens:
The author, Dennis, writes a novel but isn’t able to find a publishing deal and decides to register his manuscript with the Library of Congress anyway for copyright reasons. Two years later the main character, Jay, comes along and steals Dennis’ novel, copies everything word-for-word and decides to pass the novel off as his own to a publisher and receives a publishing deal in the process.
Fast forward a few weeks later and Dennis finds out about this and decides to sue. Now, in court, the copyright registration document of Dennis’ manuscript with the Library of Congress easily proves that Dennis came up with the idea for the novel and wrote the novel himself.
This evidence is enough for the judge to find Jay guilty of:
• wilful copyright infringement for profit which is a federal crime
• fraud (attempting to gain from the works of others)
• attempting to commit a federal crime, which is also a federal crime
• felony perjury for claiming ownership of a manuscript that he didn’t write—which is a wilful and deliberate violation of the copyright law.
But also keep in mind that Jay hasn’t received an advance from the publishing house yet (takes few weeks to process).
Also, Dennis doesn’t show up to court (only his lawyer does) as he is out of the country and is confident his lawyer will handle everything for him. So anyway Dennis’ lawyer also argues that Jay’s theft of Dennis’ novel and the entire trial caused emotional damage to Dennis as the novel was ‘very personal’ to him.
The judge hands Jay 3 years in prison along with a fine of $7 000 for ‘emotional damage’.
So here comes my question. How realistic is this kind of scenario? I mean there was no jury involved in the decision making and the judge made the decision by himself to sentence Jay to prison as the evidence and crime committed is straight forward. It’s only a story but could this happen the way I explained it in real life? And how about Dennis not showing up to court? The trial would continue anyway right? Dennis doesn’t need to give a testimony or anything. The fact that he wrote the manuscript and registered it with the Library of Congress is right there on the copyright registration document in black and white.
NOTE: Story is set in New York City.
Copyright Law: How Are Copyright Infringement Cases Handled in Court Procedures
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