Quote:
Originally Posted by czarina
ouch, that's bad news for us designers. How about if I don't know the golf clubs are fake, or that it's illegal to sell clubs that are generic?
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Well, not doing designs for sites with names like "CopyCatClubs.com" that publish statements like "your one stop shop for the best copied golf equipment on the Internet" would probably be a good start. ;-)
That's what sunk the SEO company here, IMO; it was pretty hard to say "we didn't know our client was pulling shit" when it is
that freaking obvious your client is pulling shit.
I wouldn't worry too much about this ruling's impact on your design business, so long as you do some due diligence on the people/companies that you design for. In order for a jury to be convinced that you "knew, or should have known" that the site in question was doing something illegal, there has to be some manner of evidence that points to your knowledge.
This isn't "strict liability" territory; lack of knowledge of the underlying criminality is a valid defense, and the burden is on the plaintiff to prove that you had the knowledge that you deny having. True, it's a lower standard in civil court than in criminal court ("preponderance of the evidence" vs. "beyond a reasonable doubt") but they can't merely accuse you of knowing and call it a day -- they would have to show the court some evidence, or their claims against you would probably be tossed out before the case ever reached the trial phase.