It doesnt matter what damages you have or dont have...anyone can file a lawsuit and then you have to defend against it. Even if you defend it "pro se" that is still time, anxiety and a lot of work that you have to do. There is court attendance and more paperwork then you can imagine. Even if you win, you dont really win.
The best way to deal with it is to simply avoid the issue in the first place by not re-printing the entire article. However, even links can be construed as copyright violations. The only way ET could LIMIT liability is by:
1) Registering with the US copyright office
2) Adopt and communicate a copyright infringement policy to users
3) Immediately remove copyrighted material as soon as they know it exists.
4) Issue public warnings to the offending users and ban them for repeated offenses. Its important to make the warnings public so as to clearly demonstrate to all the site does not support the infringement.
http://www.citmedialaw.org/legal-gu...f-against-copyright-claims-based-user-content
The users on ET can individually be sued as well for posting copyrighted articles. They wont escape liability in any event.
So how can you as a user limit your liability in this matter and help out ET?
1) Dont copy and paste entire articles from another site.
2. Copyright law provides for âfair useâ of portions of a copyrighted work. Copy no more than a SINGLE paragraph from the article to your post (2 or 3 sentences at most).
3. Provide a link to the article along with the name of website. For example: ww.xxx.yyy/zzz (The Lower Thumbsuck Daily News).
4. Provide, in your own words, a brief summary of the article AND your reasons for believing it will be of interest to ET members.
5. Photographs and other images are also copyrighted. "Hotlinking" of images (so that it appears in your message) from other sites should be avoided. If you wish to share an image, provide a clickable link to it.
6. Whenever you discuss a news article, always provide full attribution of the source (author, publication, date, etc.)