Submission + - Dutch copyright trolls attack blogger
bbc writes: "You've heard of patent trolls, companies that solely exist to exploit patent portfolios? A new type of "troll" has emerged: Cozzmoss is a Dutch company that buys up copyrights to works in order to claim hundreds of euros in "damages" from those that duplicate these works without permission. In the past weeks two non-commercial entities, a blogger and a foundation, have come out with their stories. The latter party had actually gained permission from the newspaper whose works they were redistributing, but in the case of the infringing article the paper had omitted to warn them that they did not hold the copyright. These cases are remarkable because in both instances the alleged infringers clearly lacked the financial ability to go to court, and the "damages" were small enough that settling would prove cheaper. This sort of trolling could be a gold mine for the unscrupulous, because it exploits the gap between what's legal and what's decent. Decent would have been to ask to take down the article first, because as the second example indicates, the infringer could have acted in good faith."
