Somebody is infriging on my friend's rights by selling his audio meditation. How to deal with it?

Question

Hi! Here is what happened:
My good friend K. has recorded a nice audio meditation about opening heart and feeling love. Some years ago he was selling it on audio cassette, and then put it on his site 2 years ago - for free.

Yesterday my friend F. emailed me an audio meditation read by another person, who is selling it online from his site. Gross thing is that it almost word for word repeats the meditation by my friend K! I didn't compare it all, but my estimate is that this guy used big portions of K's meditation and total percentage of K's material in his meditation is about 90%.

My friend K. for now has decided to do nothing agains the site that is supposedly on another continent.

I wonder, is this the correct way to handle this? Could it happen that if K. does nothing then one day this guy will sue K. for his own work, claiming it his own?

Please give me your take on this. What shall we take into consideration?

Thanks for your advices!

This infriging guy has a website and options to get in touch with his are:
1) to pay him through a web-resseller.
2) write him feedback through a form on his website.

There's no physical address. His site looks like a milking thing: sells some Amazon books, sells these audio recordings.

Most likely my friend didn't register copyright for his meditations -- I'll ask him. (Although, as I've heard, copyright derives from creating something, not from registering it...) But he will be able to get affidavits from his buyers.

So it seems that there're only 2 options:
1) write to the guy throw web form on his site.
2) complain to the company that handles web sales for him. They will probably close him. (?)

Answer 1

Your friend is probably saving himself a whole lot of grief in not pursuing a claim.

If the publisher is on different continent, it would be very difficult to pursue and even then, it may not be worth pursuing unless there the alleged plagarized tape is very popular and generating a lot of income and the publisher has significant assets.

One solution to do something without letting it just pass, would be for your friend to contact the publisher of the company via certified mail with a return receipt and indicate that he feels his work has been plagiarized. As your friend has put it out on his site for free now, a good solution to request may be for him to indicate all he wants to settle the matter is credit for the song and/or that the net proceeds from the tapes be donated to a worldwide charitable association, such as the Red Cross.

As the publisher would have the same obstacles as your friend in trying to pursue a lawsuit, and your friend has it on his website for free and it is not generating any income, it is highly unlikely they would pursue the matter. To err on the side of caution, he should keep copies of any records that demonstrate that he distributed this tapes several years ago and possibly get notarized Affidavits of a people who can acknowledge (just their statements typed up and witnessed by a Notary Public - all banks have them and if or the person who signs the document has an account there, the Notary usually does it for free) the same and keep it them in a Safe Deposit box.

Answer 2

First of all, did K copyright his material?

If not, then there is nothing he can do. Even if he just declared it was copyrighted, without registering it, that is something that can protect him, but harder to prove in court than a registered copyright.

He should at the very least, send the guy a registered letter stating that the material is originally K's and that the other guy should stop selling it. A registered letter or whatever kind of letter that will verify that the other guy received it. That will establish that he challenged the sale of his material should he decide to take action later..