ReportHost wants to sue me

#1

I stopped using their software and they suspended access to the account after inactivity, Ok,. So I reached out to ask them how do I access the reports that are on their server I have 2 clients this week who have asked me to resend older reports. Of course they didn’t address that question but this was the response I received. I have heard that others have gone through this type of stuff with them before. Looking for some guidance here and would love to hear from Ben about his thoughts on it.

ReportHost has been forced to engage in a broad campaign of copyright enforcement to defend our intellectual property assets.

We have recently become aware of the fact that you are using ReportHost’s content outside of ReportHost. This is confirmed by the fact that you have had sample reports posted online that have included ReportHost’s content without permission.

ReportHost’s narrative content, protected by copyright and registered with the US Copyright Office (U.S. Reg. Nos. TXu002195180 and TXu002195064) is licensed only for the use of our customers within our system. You acknowledged our ownership by agreeing to our Terms of Use every time you logged into our system and each time you published a report.

You must immediately cease and desist using any of our content outside of the ReportHost system.

Furthermore, we believe that your acknowledgement of our rights by agreeing to the Terms of Use and the use of our intellectual property, categorizes you as a willful infringer of our copyrights.

We would like to resolve this issue amicably with you, but we do want to be compensated for your unauthorized use.

We are willing to accept the $6/report that you would have paid us to use our content. Our estimate is that your company has written approximately 180 reports since leaving ReportHost, however, we await an accurate representation by you of the number of reports that your company has produced.

Though this is significantly less than we believe that we may be granted in a legal proceeding, as a fellow small business, we would prefer to forego, for both of us, the waste of time and money a legal proceeding would engender.

Please let us know within 5 business days if you would like to resolve this issue directly with us.

Thank you for your attention to this matter,

Scott Huston
Owner

vm: (888) 248-2156

#2

I’m confused… So, you do not have rights to the reports that you wrote while you were paying for the service?

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#3

Reach out to @gromicko

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#4

That’s one of my points. I paid them for the use of the software for each of those reports, but now I don’t have access. But they want money for an “estimated” number of reports that have been written since I have no longer been using their program, with the assumption that I have been using their “proprietary verbiage”.

#5

Not sure how to get this directly to Ben ?

#6

Click @gromicko and the option to send a message to Nick will pop up. He was also tagged, so he’ll see this thread.

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#7

Sounds like a jaded ex when they see you with a newer model.

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#8

BTW, It has me listed as a Non-member/guest. Apparently when my credit card expired I forgot to update my info with InterNACHI. I updated that and I’m back on the team. LOL

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#9

Is this a fair statement? ^^^
It appears you use another software now with sample report.

#10

Dear Scott Hudson,

I understand your desire to protect your intellectual property. I will remove the sample report and pay the $1080 and do one better. I will match the $1080 plus $1 to launch a social media ad campaign telling everyone in my inspection community why I left report host. It will not be a positive review. I have access to over 20,000 members. Please let me know where to send the check and I will copy you in all of my social media correspondence so you can track your glowing reputation.

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#11

Reach out to InterNACHI legal team. I am sure Joe Ferry will have solid advice.
I use Horizon. Reports are saved for 7 years.

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#12

They don’t want to sue you. They want you to pay a $1080 ransom to access your old reports.

Nonetheless, If you are using their copyright without permission, stop immediately. Remove it from your template so it is not used on future reports. If they have it copyrighted, they have every right to protect it. Then ask how they came to the 180 report total and try and get it down to 90 or so to cut your cost to only $540.

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#13

Ben@InterNACHI.org

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#14

I concur. They do not want to litigate and draw negative exposure on themselves. I have heard this tactic used before by a disgruntled inspection report host.

*Insure all reports are saved in a cloud based server or on separate hard drives in the future to avoid such events like this from taking place.
Happened to me when I started out in 2012. Fumbling around I found the reports 2 clients requested on my 1-tera bite of cloud I got with my Microsoft Office purchase. The mishap sure had me worried for 24 hours until I stumbled on the reports.
Good luck.
Keep us posted.

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#15

Agreed, he learned a hard lesson. We should all keep our reports for some time. How long? Why not indefinitely? Storage is cheap.

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#16

Average, 7 years in most states and provinces. 10 years in Quebec, so I have heard from a reliable source.

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#17

@ryoung7 good advice!

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#18

I see this was already posted above. But just in case anyone missed it this has been a hot topic for the last year or two.

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#19

He best update his membership :slight_smile:

image

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#20

I did not want to bring it up directly. Legally, any responsibility is on the purchaser/user, to read the contractual rules/legal obligations.
Read my previous post… "I have heard this tactic used before by a disgruntled ‘inspection report host.’
HIP Charged $25 month for cloud when I was using HIP. I bowed out and use Horizon.