Copywrite

The U.S. District Court for the Eastern or Western District of Arkansas was chosen as the forum for litigating the following case(s), as published by Justia:

• Nelson Design Group LLC v. Puckett et al; No. 3:2007cv00177 (07-117); Filed: November 21, 2007; Court: Arkansas Eastern District Court; Office: Jonesboro Office; County: Craighead
  Not much to see here. Nelson Design Group filed a lawsuit for infringing the copyright in their home designs. The complaint alledges that Richard Puckett, a former employee, copied designs and gave them to his codefendants, Barry Phillips, Brent Phillips, State Development, LLC, and Phillips Investments & Construction Company, Inc., to use in their home building business. The Complaint alleges eight counts of copyright infringement (that would be eight houses, not eight designs) and that Puckett breached his employment contract. Nelson Design seeks a preliminary injunction and other remedies. In the complaint Nelson Design Group states:

Plaintiff immediately contacted the defendants, Richard Puckett and Barry Phillips, and asked how the house plans had been obtained. Both defendants asserted that the house was built from hand drawn prints. Upon further investigation, numerous plans owned and copyrighted by plaintiff are being used by the defendants to build homes. . .

I would like to see what kind of investigation was needed. I imagine a 2 minute trip to one of the worksites and finding CAD drawing printouts was it took. Puckett had worked for Nelson Design since 2001 before being let go in 2006, and even presented his computer to Nelson Design to show he had none of their CAD drawings on his way out. I imagine, as the housing crisis heats up (oh, there is a long way for it to fall before it hits bottom) we will see more people cutting corners like this.