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April 27, 2011

Richard C. Vershave
Direct Dial: 206.957.2167
Via E-mail (REDACTED ) Email: vershave@blgip.com

Re: Online uploads made by Phil Mocek of The Guardian newspaper

Our Reference: SPOG-5-1002

Dear Mr. Mocek:

We represent the Seattle Police Officers’ Guild in intellectual property matters. It has recently
come to our client’s attention that you have engaged and continue to engage in wholesale
copying of articles from The Guardian newspaper, a publication of the Seattle Police Officers’
Guild. This conduct is in violation, inter alia, of federal copyright law and state unfair
competition law.

The wholesale copying we refer to may be found on the www.scribd.com/pmocek website as

uploads by you. By way of example, your upload1 on March 16, 2011 provides a complete copy
of the March 2011 edition of The Guardian. At least another thirty-four additional wholesale
copying uploads have been made available by you at http://www.scribd.com/pmocek/collections,
each listed in Exhibit A. These uploads are not associated with any commentary and you
repeatedly attempt to pass off your slavish copies as “the official newsletter of the Seattle Police
Officers’ Guild.”

While you may believe your activities are permitted by the fair use doctrine or protected under
the First Amendment, we note that federal courts in our jurisdiction have repeatedly found
otherwise under similar fact patterns. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals determined that
copying an entire work militates against a finding of fair use. Worldwide Church of God v.
Philadelphia Church of God, Inc., 227 F.3d 1110 (9th Cir. Cal. 2000). In the Worldwide Church
case, the defendant Philadelphia Church appropriated a religious work authored by one of
Worldwide Church’s pastors for use in its religious observance by copying the work in its
entirety and distributing it to its members and the public. The Ninth Circuit found that because a
substantial portion of the infringing work was copied verbatim the defendant was not entitled to
claim fair use.

1
http://www.scribd.com/doc/50826349/SPOG-The-Guardian-2011-March

SPOG-5-1002 Cease and Desist Ltr

Mr. Phil Mocek
April 27, 2011
Page 2

In another example, the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California in evaluating the
fair use defense, determined that even where copying serves the "criticism, comment and news
reporting" purposes set forth in 17 U.S.C.S. § 107, its extent cannot exceed what is necessary.
L.A. Times v. Free Republic, 2000 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 5669 (C.D. Cal. Mar. 31, 2000). The facts
of this case are strikingly parallel to your conduct because Free Republic copied the entire text of
articles published by the L.A. Times and then posted the copied text on Free Republic’s website
so others could add commentary. The District Court stated that “commentary on news events
requires only recitation of the underlying facts, not verbatim repetition of another's creative
expression of those facts in a news article. The fact that a particular media outlet publishes a
given story, or approaches that story from a particular angle can be communicated to a large
degree without posting a full text copy of the report” (emphasis added). For this reason, the
District Court denied Free Republic’s summary judgment motion for protection under the fair
use doctrine and concluded that verbatim posting of the L.A. Times’ authored articles was "more
than is necessary" to further Free Republic’s critical purpose.

In view of the above and on behalf of the Seattle Police Officers’ Guild, we demand that you
cease and desist from such copying and remove all online links to the same. We have notified
Scribd Inc. about the unauthorized copies uploaded by you to their site. The submitted takedown
request filed under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is attached as Exhibit B. We
direct you to Scribd’s Copyright Management System2 so you may refresh yourself on their zero-
tolerance policy for repeat copyright infringers. Consequences for your ongoing actions are
serious and under the Federal Copyright Act you may be subjected to a temporary and permanent
injunction, the destruction of all infringing copies and statutory damages of up to $150,000 for
each act of infringement. Further, the apparent willfulness of your infringing conduct may result
in further sanctions, which may include enhanced damages and possible criminal charges3. In
addition, our client’s legal costs and attorneys' fees may be awarded should they prevail in any
resulting litigation.

The Seattle Police Officers’ Guild is willing to resolve this matter amicably provided that you
immediately discontinue your infringing activities and institute provisions to insure such activity
does not occur in the future. By immediately ceasing such illegal copying activities, you may
limit the amount of damage that has already been caused and potentially could be caused in this
matter. The Seattle Police Officers’ Guild would be willing to release you from liability related
to the above-mentioned claims, if you agree to:

• immediately stop any commercial use, copying (e.g., scanning or linking) or distribution
(e.g., posting, re-posting or uploading) of The Guardian in any online or printed format;

2
http://www.scribd.com/copyright

3
See 17 U.S.C. § 506

SPOG-5-1002 Cease and Desist Ltr

Mr. Phil Mocek
April 27, 2011
Page 3

• remove and permanently delete all infringing instances of wholesale copying of The
Guardian articles from Scribd.com and any other site, database, server, or memory
storage medium that you may utilize for your infringing activities;

• immediately cease use of any trademark owned by the Seattle Police Officers’ Guild; and

• notify the undersigned in writing no later than April 30, 2011 that the aforementioned
steps have been fully completed.

Very truly yours,

BLACK LOWE & GRAHAMPLLC

Richard C. Vershave
Enclosures:
Exhibit A
Exhibit B

Cc: Client

SPOG-5-1002 Cease and Desist Ltr

 EXHIBIT A
Posts from March 12, 2011:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/50571994/SPOG-The-Guardian-2006-July;
http://www.scribd.com/doc/50571936/SPOG-The-Guardian-2006-August;
http://www.scribd.com/doc/50572091/SPOG-The-Guardian-2006-September;
http://www.scribd.com/doc/50572055/SPOG-The-Guardian-2006-October;
http://www.scribd.com/doc/50572026/SPOG-The-Guardian-2006-November;
http://www.scribd.com/doc/50571973/SPOG-The-Guardian-2006-December;
http://www.scribd.com/doc/50572223/SPOG-The-Guardian-2007-January;
http://www.scribd.com/doc/50572196/SPOG-The-Guardian-2007-February;
http://www.scribd.com/doc/50572301/SPOG-The-Guardian-2007-March;
http://www.scribd.com/doc/50572113/SPOG-The-Guardian-2007-April;
http://www.scribd.com/doc/50572308/SPOG-The-Guardian-2007-May;
http://www.scribd.com/doc/50572278/SPOG-The-Guardian-2007-June;
http://www.scribd.com/doc/50572257/SPOG-The-Guardian-2007-July;
http://www.scribd.com/doc/50572138/SPOG-The-Guardian-2007-August;
http://www.scribd.com/doc/50572375/SPOG-The-Guardian-2007-September;
http://www.scribd.com/doc/50572355/SPOG-The-Guardian-2007-October;
http://www.scribd.com/doc/50572330/SPOG-The-Guardian-2007-November;
http://www.scribd.com/doc/50572164/SPOG-The-Guardian-2007-December;
http://www.scribd.com/doc/50572467/SPOG-The-Guardian-2008-January;
http://www.scribd.com/doc/50572450/SPOG-The-Guardian-2008-February;
http://www.scribd.com/doc/50572653/SPOG-The-Guardian-2008-March;
http://www.scribd.com/doc/50572394/SPOG-The-Guardian-2008-April;
http://www.scribd.com/doc/50572671/SPOG-The-Guardian-2008-May;
http://www.scribd.com/doc/50572634/SPOG-The-Guardian-2008-July;
http://www.scribd.com/doc/50572848/SPOG-The-Guardian-2008-September;
http://www.scribd.com/doc/50572704/SPOG-The-Guardian-2008-November;
http://www.scribd.com/doc/50572424/SPOG-The-Guardian-2008-December;
http://www.scribd.com/doc/50572964/SPOG-The-Guardian-2009-February;
http://www.scribd.com/doc/50573175/SPOG-The-Guardian-2009-March;
http://www.scribd.com/doc/50573149/SPOG-The-Guardian-2009-June;
http://www.scribd.com/doc/50573101/SPOG-The-Guardian-2009-July;
http://www.scribd.com/doc/50572880/SPOG-The-Guardian-2009-August;
http://www.scribd.com/doc/50573313/SPOG-The-Guardian-2009-September;
http://www.scribd.com/doc/50573226/SPOG-The-Guardian-2009-October.
EXHIBIT B
From: Support Desk [mailto:support@scribd.com]
Sent: Tuesday, April 26, 2011 12:18 PM
To: Richard C. Vershave
Subject: Scribd Copyright/DMCA request received: 111615 / Attn: Copyright Agent, Scribd,
Inc. re: www.scribd.com/pmocek and related sites (ticket #111615)

^^^ TEXT ABOVE THIS LINE IS ADDED TO YOUR REQUEST ^^^

Ticket #111615: Attn: Copyright Agent, Scribd, Inc. re: www.scribd.com/pmocek...

Thank you for contacting Scribd Support. Your request has been automatically routed to our
Copyright department and will be processed as soon as possible.

Content on Scribd is uploaded and maintained by Scribd's users with no editorial intervention
or approval from Scribd employees. Scribd takes the rights of intellectual property owners
very seriously and complies as a service provider with all applicable provisions of the United
States Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA") of 1998. We expeditiously remove
infringing material and terminate repeat infringers when such action is deemed appropriate.
Click here to read Scribd's complete official copyright infringement removal policy.

If you have submitted a request to remove a copyright infringement, please make sure that
your request meets the basic criteria for validity as specified under the DMCA [17 USC
512(c)]. We have created a template that makes it easy for you to submit a legally valid
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You can update your request by replying to this email. You do not need a Scribd
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Best regards,

Scribd Support, Copyright Desk

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