In my Friday round-up I briefly wrote about the lame attempt of the Dozier law firm to claim copyright infringement if any part of their cease and desist letter was published. Public Citizen had published the letter on behalf of the recipient, as fair use, and challenged Dozier to sue them. I followed up with a fuller post on Tuesday (Don't Post This Letter On The Internet!). While not what I usually write about, the sheer audacity of it caught my interest.

As a result of Dozier's claim of a copyright infringement for publishing any part of their cease and desist letters, The Streisand Effect seems to be taking hold, and others are now writing on the issue. Additional links follow, of which the first, by leading copyright attorney William Patry, is particularly enlightening on how he thinks Dozier misused the copyright claim in their letter:

• Misuse via Cease and Desist Letters (The Patry Copyright Blog);
• More DirectBuy Complaints (before they hired Dozier Internet Law) (tdaxp.com)

But rather than let the issue fade away, as I think would have been wise, Dozier has now published more on the subject at their own website here, as well as by making nasty remarks in the comments section here. Those comments first acknowledged that they had no U.S. authority for their position and then sought to change the subject by saying a personal injury attorney should keep his nose out of this. Blaming the messenger, while a fairly old and traditional tactic for distraction, obviously ignores the issue.

The publication of the new letter by Dozier will, of course, lead to yet more discussion not only of the issue, but of their client DirectBuy and the original allegations that the company was a scam. It was those allegations Dozier had apparently been trying to squash. Here is the first I have seen in response to that new letter, though I suspect other responses may follow:

• How not to handle negative feedback: A preliminary case study of Dozier Internet Law (tdaxp.com);

I can only think of two reasons for Dozier to publish such a letter on their site: The first is sheer folly, since it draws yet more attention to the charges against the company they wish to defend.

The second is more troublesome. Is Dozier simply trying to create more controversy, and thus more links to their website and hopefully more business? That will surely be one result of publishing a letter to Public Citizen on their website instead of reaching out to them privately. But this would also raise very troubling issues regarding attorney ethics and legal malpractice since this is seems to me clearly detrimental to their client. I prefer the first explanation -- that it is sheer folly and not an ethical breach -- though a savvy Internet based business must surely anticipate the repercussions to their client of additional commentary on the subject.

In either case, I think a legal malpractice claim could theoretically be made against Dozier for taking a bad situation and making it worse, in the event DirectBuy is harmed by their counsel's conduct. But only time will tell on that.

Labels: First Amendment