Etsy shop closed by US law firm

[AndyJ]

I'm afraid we need some more details about your problem and perhaps a specific point that you want clarified.

[AndyJ]

Hi Wantasimplelife.

This certainly has all the hallmarks of a scam, with the exception that scammers are usually much more eager to get your money so they make it easy for you to contact them. It may be worth googling the name of the law firm to see if they have a reputation for this kind of shake down.

You don't mention where you are based so I'm assuming it's the UK. If that is right then you don't come under the jurisdiction of the US courts and so you have nothing to fear from any threats to sue you there. What is at stake is the reinstatement of your Etsy acccount and nothing more. Also you haven't said whether the claim involves copyright or trade marks.

I think you need to persevere and sort this out with Etsy. It does not appear to be a bona fide claim, and if you can persuade Etsy on this point, they may reinstate your account. Pulling the account based on a claim about a single item in your shop is overkill anyway. Delete the item which is in dispute, or ask Etsy to do so since you can't access your account, and don't bother continuing trying to contact the so-called lawyers. As for the stress, remember that there is no way this matter will go any further, legally speaking.

[beelzebomb]

My own experience of Etsy is that Etsy claims complete neutrality much like eBay. Which means they comply with all DMCA notices filed and remove items, and thus cannot be held legally responsible for what is sold on its platform. It’s then up to you to either file a counter-notice if you know the notice to be wrong, or contact the person filing the notice - etsy will not get involved in the dispute.
If you have received a few takedown notices, Etsy reserves the right to close your shop (effectively in the belief that you may be too much of a troublesome user - this you can dispute with Etsy, as it’s an Etsy decision).
The other thing is Etsy complying with USA lawyer/court requests to shut your shop pending investigation (Etsy being an American company and complies with/is subject to American law).
Hope that bit of info helps.

[AndyJ]

Hi again wantasimplelife,

New member DanielNorman88 appears to be having the same experience as you. He has named the law firm as TME Law of Chicago. If this is the same firm (and their operation sounds identical) then we may be moving forward a bit. TME Law does not appear to be registered in the state of Illinois, although there is firm of the same name in Pennsylvania who appear to specialise estate planning (ie will writing) and neither attorney listed with the Pennsylvania firm is licensed to practice in Illinois.

The TME law connected to the links you were given reveal there are two attonrneys with the firm: Martin F Trainor and Sameeul Haque. Both appear to be licensed to practice law in Illinois. Martin Trainor was previously with the law firm Greer, Burns & Crain, Ltd and was admiited to the Illinois State Bar Association in 2020. Sameeul Haque was, and maybe still is, a staff attorney with the Corporate Accountability Lab of Chicago. He was admitted the ISBA in 2019 . The organistationfor who he works/ed, CAL has the following mission: to unleash "the creative potential of the law to protect people and the planet from corporate abuse"'. You can find other stuff about both attorneys if you google their names.

So having established who we are dealing with, let's look at their operation. It is a fairly well-worn, and distinctly dubious, path in the US. First find some people on the internet who may be doing something which might involve someone else's intellectual property. Second go to the firms whose IP may be involved and say something like: 'Hey I can make you lots of money if you authorise me to go and chase these people who are ripping you off' (some law firms forget to do that stage, and pretend they are representing a big company like Sony). Then thirdly the law firm files a claim with the court in which the alleged infringers are just a group of anonymous people listed in an annex. The courthouse (not the judge) rubber stamps the claim and hey presto you have the sort of document you have seen on the TME website which scares companies like Etsy into giving out your details and suspending your account.

The law firm, armed with the details handed to them by the intermediaries such as Etsy or Facebook or Ebay, then make demands for ridiculous amounts of money to make the threat of litigation go away. And of course many people are so scared, they pay up. However the plan has a flaw, which is that the US courts (who regretably tend to condone or at least don't discourage this kind of behaviour) have no jurisdiction over anyone who lives outside the USA. So the lawyers like Mr Trainor and Mr Haque can get as many default judgments as they want, but they have no means of enforcing them. Yes, in theory they could submit an application to the High Court of England and Wales for the judgment to be enforced, but the UK court would not entertain this if it was clear that a British defendant had not been given a chance to defend himself before the US court, and secondly they would not allow the application if the tort which is the subject of the submission would not be applicable under UK law. The cast iron precedence for this is a case known as Lucasfilm Ltd v Andrew Ainsworth in which the UK Supreme Court refused to enforce the judgment of a Californian court in which George Lucas alleged that Mr Ainsworth had infringed the copyright in the Star Wars stormtrooper helmets. Furthermore the court said there was no copyright infringement under UK law. And bringing a case for enforcement in the High Court of England and Wales is very costly. For those reasons, this tin pot law firm in Chicago are not going bother you if you just ignore them; they will be making too much money from their own citizens to worry about a few slipping through the net.

I have to conclude by saying, this is not legal advice! I am not your lawyer, and if you still feel unsure about how you should deal with these claims, please consult a solicitor or Citizens Advice.

[DanielNorman88]

Poster has asked for this posting to be removed

[DanielNorman88]

Poster has asked for this posting to be removed

[DanielNorman88]

Poster has asked for this posting to be removed

[DanielNorman88]

Poster has asked for this posting to be removed

[DanielNorman88]

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[DanielNorman88]

Their website is shady too, it's a free wix website with next to no information and a some stock images and text that can't be read over the images, very unprofessional. The website is only around 6 months old.

[AndyJ]

If the matter went to court in the USA and a default judgment was given against you, that would be a civil matter so it wouldn't be something you needed to declare to get a US visa. If the claimant then went back to the court to get an enforcement order to recover whatever damages the first court had awarded, I suspect that the second court would look much more closely at the fact that you weren't resident in the USA and therefore conclude that it was a waste of the court's time to make an enforcement order as you were outside the jurisdiction. However let's assume that an order was made. This could then mean that if you were later to visit the USA and that fact became known to the claimant, they could serve the order on you. However all of this process costs money and I can't see this law firm wasting money when they will clearly know that you live outside the USA and the chances of you visting and of them becoming aware that you are in the country, are pretty slim. Since you would have very little property of value on you during your visit, there would be nothing to seize and sell. Given the type of quick return operation this law firm appear to be involved in, I would expect them to sell on many of their debts to a debt collection company. Fair Debt Collection in the USA

So yes there would be some risk in going to the USA if there was any kind of follow through on their threat, but firstly I don't think they would bother to do the follow up, and secondly the actual risk of them or a debt collection company becoming aware that you are in the USA for a few weeks on a tourist visa is really very small. But as ever, get proper legal advice if and when the situation arises.

[johnb2022]

Hello,

This has been a helpful read as I'm in the exact same position. I'm also based in the UK, and my Etsy account was suspended back in April this year for copyright infringement, and received the same email from Etsy in August saying they've been notified by TME-Law about legal proceedings against me. I got in touch with a local law firm straight away and paid £250 for legal advice. They read the documents and were suspicious of the whole situation due to the red flags that have already been mentioned on this thread, and advised me to ignore it, but to contact them if I hear any more.

I heard nothing more until yesterday when I received an email from this Martin Trainor (TME-Law) stating there is an Initial Status hearing on 3.11.2022 (in 2 days time, very late notice - another red flag).


Has anybody received the same or can advise on what I should do? Should I ignore the so called hearing on Thursday?

Thanks in advance.

[AndyJ]

Hi guys,

It would be a mistake to view this as a scam, since that implies the whole thing is illegal or that there is criminal deception involved. From what I have seen from your descriptions of these claims, they may well be founded on a legitimate claim of infringement, although as yet I haven't seen any actual specific claim. The area of concern is the tactics being employed, namely the excessive amounts being sought and the fact that there has been no realistic attempt by the cliamants to come to a pre-court settlement. This kind of behaviour in the UK would incur the disapproval of the court.

However, that does not mean that you should rush to join in the proceedings in the US court, which I assume is Federal Court of the Seventh Circuit for the Northern District of Illinois which is based in Chicago, since that is where Justice Virgina Mary Kendall sits as a judge.

Providing the claimant makes it clear to the court (which I suspect they probably won't) that some of the John Does cited in the claim are not domiciled in the USA, the judge should conduct an inquiry to see if her court ought to assume jurisdiction to hear the case. Normally for a court to be the convenient forum, at least two of the following three factors should lie within the court's jurisdiction: the habitual location of the plaintiff (the term used instead of claimant in the USA), the habitual location of the defendant, and the place where the wrong occurred. In the case of the last factor, since a sale on the internet could, theoretically, occur anywhere in the world, the court would normally break this down into the locations which it might be deduced the defendant was actually trading or intending to trade. So for instance if the website was all in German and the prices of the goods were all in Euros, that would suggest that the USA was not target market of that particular seller, thus on that factor the US court should be wary of assuming jurisdiction.

So if any of you decide to engage with the court via the video link, make sure you tell the court that you move that the application be dismissed under the doctrine of forum non conveniens since the claim fails on all three of the key factors: the plaintiff (Sony or Sega etc) is not incorporated in the state of Illinois, you are not domiciled in the USA and your target audience on Etsy was not the USA as your pricing was in pounds sterling and you have made no sales of the disputed product to customers in the USA*. Consequently you should not recognise the authority of the court.

* Obviously if you have made sales of the disputed item to customers in the USA you should not make this last statement, and if you are unsure about this you can state that to the best of your knowledge and belief you have not made any sales in the USA. It will then be up to the plaintiff to prove the contrary.

[johnb2022]

Hi AndyJ,

Thanks for your informative reply.

If I attended this video call, would I need to hire a US attorney to speak on my behalf? Or would it be normal for me to attend independently? What would happen if I didn't attend?

I've never found myself in any legal problems before so this video call sounds very overwhelming and daunting.

To be honest I'm tempted to offer the claimant a settlement fee put this to bed. I really don't want to go to court for this and pay expensive legal fees.

[AndyJ]

Hi John,

Yes, if you go ahead with joining the court on a live linkup you really should be represented by a US attorney. However you could appear as a pro se litigant (referred to as a litigant-in-person in the UK) but clearly in the latter case you would be at a severe diadvantage of not understanding the procedure or the law. At this stage I am unclear how much TME Law knows about your identity. If they know your real name and UK address then they are in a position to pursue you further, but if they only have your Etsy user name and an email address, for example, you are effectively a John Doe and they are probably using the threat of the court case to get you to reveal more about your identity. Obviosuly the court would require these details if you wanted to address the court as a defendant.

Getting a US attorney to represent you would be very costly and even if you won, there is no guarantee you would get your legal expenses back.

I have only limited knowledge of US court procedure so I wouldn't want to say more than this.