Can I successfully sue an online match making website for matching me with a fraudster? Say I used a match making website to find a girl. The website matched our personalities, likes, dislike, etc. It turns out that this women is a fraud. She is drop dead beautiful, but her intention was to suck off all my assets, particularly through divorce settlements. I will be taking legal actions on her no doubt, but can I also successfully sue the online match making website for matching me with the fraudster?
There are only two arguments you can make: The match making website did something wrong. I don't see how you can make this argument unless you have some reason to suspect they actually did something wrong. Strict liability applies. I think this fails for two reasons. One is that no theory of strict liability that I know of would apply to this situation. The other is that this is precisely the kind of risk that a user of the site should be protecting themselves from because it is much easier to detect fraud when you have extensive contact with someone than when you just operate a matchmaking service. So absent some evidence they did something wrong, such as ignoring specific warning signs from this particular user, there is no way such a suit could succeed.
People running web servers are generally liable for contributory culpability, when some user breaks the law by putting the material on the server. There are legal mechanisms for relieving the server guy from this burden. The best-known mechanism is "DMCA takedown", where you publish contact information so that an offended person can serve up a proper legal claim that you are distributing material that they own copyright to. If you follow the rules, you may enjoy "safe harbor" protection against contributory liability: one of the requirements is that you have to take infringing material down. The specific requirements can depend on the nature of the liability and jurisdiction, but generally involves a "hands off" involvement where the person has no knowledge of what's going on on his server. So just disclaiming responsibility does not work. There are other more serious violations, such as distribution of child porn or transmission of top secret information. Jurisdiction is not totally central to internet questions, and I could sue you (the server guy) in US courts, or (depending on the offense: copyright infringement of a particular item) in UK courts. Nailing this down specifically to Sweden is harder, but recall that The Pirate Bay had a whopping judgment against them.
First, it is quite unlikely that a US court would take on the case. Someone will have more details, but for example in EU law if you move away from the place you last lived together, you can only file for divorce in the country where your partner is living (in this case, India). Annullment is a much more serious matter than divorce, so I doubt any American court would take this case: Annulment would mean that a US court would have to decide that an Indian registry office didn't do its job right. Second, A needs convincing evidence. Frankly, "masculine appearance" and "typical masculine voice" are just opinions and therefore not evidence. Even if the court were convinced that B has a "masculine appearance" that's not evidence for being a male. A has to show the evidence, and as half of us know and the other half learned in their biology lessons, there is some pretty convincing evidence that someone is a man which A didnt' mention. And I'd ask anyone not to edit this out, because it is quite essential to the case. B doesn't have to visit a doctor and get a statement that she is a woman (which would destroy any case immediately), because based on the available evidence, A will lose the case anyway. On the other hand, after that court case has finished, B can at any time (after appropriate waiting times according to US law) come to the USA and file for divorce.
A settlement can include whatever terms the parties agree on, short of terms prohibited by law. Usually one party gives up at lest some claims. Then other party nay also give up,claims, or make a payment, or both. There may be other terms as well, including confidentiality of the details. It is not uncommon for both parties to give up all claims against each other. Settlement agreements are legally binding on both parties. We cannot advise on what kind of settlement a particular person should take in a particular case. For tht, consult a lawyer.
In German Law you need to give your agreement ("Willenserklärung") to a contract or in this case terms of service. This is done by telling the other part. In some cases this can also be implied by an action (example: putting your bottle of beer onto the cashiers table is an offer to buy this bottle). As a second criteria a "Willenserklärung" needs to be the exact will of the part that declares its will (the website user in this case) §§ 133, 157 BGB or that the other side (you) could only see so (not the case here as this mainly speaks of content). If you visit a website and there are terms of services, the "Willenserklärung" is only given when the user read and agreed to the terms. If he did not, the terms of service are not applied until the user agrees to them. So I would recommend to block the website until the user agreed (overlay) as you need to proof he did when in court. Additionally there are so called AGB's in Germany. Those are contracts that are used or planed for many (more than 3) uses and set by one side (you). This may apply here, so you need to follow a lot of other rules like making sure the user had access and agreed, then there are many content restrictions and so on... I recommend consulting a German Lawyer specialized on this topic as this is very complex and includes other German laws for Media too, depending on the content of your site and terms. Also note that everything said is only based on my own knowledge and can not be used as safe legal source.
Would they ask for a take down for any other reason, when various other manga reader websites are making money off them? Merely looking at the fact that the other sites have not been taken down is not a good metric to decide if you will face an infringement suit for your own site. Consider the following possibilities: The manga on those sites may be published by a different publisher than the manga you want to host, and that publisher of your desired manga is more litigious. The manga publisher may not have been actively pursuing infringement for the last several years, but they may suddenly decide this fiscal year it's a financially good idea to start aggressively pursuing infringement. They will go after the other sites and your site at the same time. Because you plan to give them money, you are actively drawing attention to your infringing site. While they may not find it worth their while to seek out whatever new infringing sites pop up every week, in this case, they don't have to come looking for you. You show up to them, actively telling them that you're infringing their copyright. Of course, they might not care. They might love your idea. Regardless, the legally sound way to do this is to ask for permission before you do it, rather than forgiveness afterward. If you don't, you are certainly vulnerable to a lawsuit (whether or not the publisher will pursue the opportunity to sue you is a question left to the discretion of the publisher). Considering that myself is not going to be making any money off their work, does this still fall into the category of criminal act? If so, are there more than take down notices that can happen? (C&amp;D? financial punishment? imprisoning?) Having your infringing site taken down is the minimum that could happen. If you commit copyright infringement, the copyright holder is fully entitled to file a lawsuit against you at once. It's possible that they could just file a DMCA takedown notice to your ISP to have the content taken down, but they are entitled to sue you for damages as well. Maybe they won't sue you because it's not worth their while. If not: lucky you! So, ask yourself: do you feel lucky? Copyright infringement is typically a civil offense and only punished with fines. It can only qualify as a criminal offense under 17 U.S.C. §506 when the infringement is &quot;willful&quot; and meets one of the following criteria: (A) for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain; (B) by the reproduction or distribution, including by electronic means, during any 180-day period, of 1 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted works, which have a total retail value of more than $1,000; or (C) by the distribution of a work being prepared for commercial distribution, by making it available on a computer network accessible to members of the public, if such person knew or should have known that the work was intended for commercial distribution. As long as you don't violate any of those conditions, your infringement is not criminal. Condition B seems most likely, if I am reading it correctly: if your site serves a $10 book one hundred times, then you've met the $1000 threshold. The threshold of what makes an infringement &quot;willful&quot; versus &quot;ordinary&quot; is somewhat nebulous; see Wikipedia's article on Criminal Copyright Law in the United States.
Please note that I'm not a lawyer. If you need specific legal advice, please consult a qualified attorney. Every time someone buys an item from someone else, there's at least an implied contract of sale where the seller of the item agrees to give the buyer the item to be purchased in exchange for a sum of money or other object of value which the buyer agrees to pay as consideration. Generally, in an online purchase, a contract of sale is completed when payment is made and the product has shipped. If the seller fails to provide the item you intended to buy after you make your payment, that's a breach of this contract of sale as the seller has failed to execute their end of the contract. I seriously doubt a "no refunds" policy would excuse the vendor for breaching the contract of sale. If you cannot resolve the issue with the vendor, then your best bet is to initiate a dispute through your credit/debit card issuer.
I am just a foreign patent attorney who is studying common law to pass the California Bar Exam, but I will present my personal view. (I cannot guarantee the validity of my theory) There is an equitable theory called Constructive Trust. If it is established, the victim is entitled to benefit of any increase in value of defendant's (thief) property, meaning in this example victim (plaintiff) can recover $100 million. In order to assert CT, the following must be met: Wrongful appropriation; Here, D stole lottery ticket. Met. D has title; Here, D has title to $100 million. Met. P can trace his property to D's property; P can trace from P's $1 lottery ticket to its possession by D and collection by D of $100 million. Met. Unjust enrichment by D; D was enriched by stealing P's property (the lottery ticket). Met. Thus, it is highly possible that a court will order D to hold the property ($100 million) in constructive trust for P. This means, in plain language, that P will recover $100 million.