Why I was Almost Sued by The New York Times

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Almost being sued by a major corporation such as the New York Times definitely isn’t funny business. In fact, it’s extremely frightening and stressful.

What happened?

I found out recently that the New York Times was going to start charging readers in January 2011 for frequent access to their website. The article (published by the New York Times itself) clearly outlines the business model, targeting frequent readers. If you read the New York Times’ website once a month, you will be not be asked to pay. However, if you are a frequent reader, you will be asked to subscribe in order to continue reading after a certain point. It does not take rocket science to figure out that the newspaper is going to track this via cookies.

I personally dislike the idea of being charged for online content, especially general news. My idea was a website explaining how to navigate around the fee. It would simply be a guide on how to erase cookies and a plugin for Firefox or Chrome that would do it automatically.

After buying the domain FreeNewYorkTimes.com, I set up the site. I purchased Optimize, a fantastic WordPress theme, from WooThemes.  Designed a nice logo that looked very different from that of the New York Times to be certain that visitors would not think this site was owned by the paper. At the same time, I found a developer to make the plugin. Everything was in place.

Aftermath

A few days later, I awoke to the most alarming email I have ever received. It was from my hosting and domain provider, Godaddy. The subject line read: “Copyright Dispute (HOSTING FOR FREENEWYORKTIMES.COM)”.

Frantically, I checked all of my sites to see if they were still up. Each one displayed: “This website cannot be found.” You may have noticed it…

I knew from a prior experience of being hacked that I had to stay calm. Panicking would not help.

I reread Godaddy’s email to better assess the situation. It contained the following message from a New York Times’ attorney.

NYTCo recently became aware of the existence of freenewyorktimes.com, a website that uses NYTCo’s exact trademarks, logo, layout and photographs in promoting a plug-in that purportedly gives unlimited, unauthorized access to NYTCo’s online version of The New York Times. This website is infringing upon NYTCo’s ownership of trademarks and copyrighted material displayed on NYTCo’s own website, NYTimes.com.

On behalf of NYTCo, I hereby demand that Domaincontrol.com immediately remove the infringing material.

At this point, I would have been happy to do what they were asking. Unfortunately, my hosting account was suspended and I couldn’t even login to take down the website.

Attracting the attention of the New York Times might sound exciting, but in reality, it was very scary. They had easily succeeded in convincing Godaddy to block my hosting without prior warning.

My only option: ask my father for help. After 36 hours of non-stop calls and emails with Godaddy he finally succeeded. Everything was back to normal. Once I had access to my hosting account, I immediately deleted everything on FreeNewYorkTimes.com.

Lessons

I am still in shock from this whole story, but the bottom line is, when you have a business idea, make sure to check all the legal aspects before moving forward. One simple mistake can lead to huge consequences.

Although I thought the New York Time’s response was slightly over-exaggerated, I was afraid to take on a huge company. They’re a massive corporation with almost unlimited resources, and I probably wouldn’t even be able to afford a lawyer.