The lawyer's letter itself will not have legal consequences, just a warning. Lawyer's letter is generally regarded as a threat of litigation, which may be that the parties put pressure on the other party to make peace on their own initiative in order to gain the advantage of negotiation; It is also possible that the parties lose confidence in conflict resolution and issue a lawsuit warning.
1. Confirm the authenticity of the lawyer's letter
First of all, determine the authenticity of the lawyer's letter to prevent being cheated. The lawyer's letter needs to be stamped with the official seal of the law firm and the lawyer's signature. You can inquire about the situation of relevant law firms and lawyers through the internet, or you can call the phone on the lawyer's letter to inquire. However, be careful when calling to ask questions, so as not to keep relevant evidence. Therefore, it is recommended to give priority to online verification channels.
2. Check yourself and stop using pirated software or offline software.
Self-examination can take the form of editing online questionnaire, employees' self-declaration, and re-checking after IT department statistics. The contents of the questionnaire should include: listing possible software, installation time, authorization, etc. After obtaining the statistical data of self-inspection, conduct market research on the software involved in the self-inspection results, estimate the unit price or the authorized price of the package, and preliminarily estimate the compensation amount.
3. Contact the issuer to evaluate the evidence it has.
There is no evidence that the company uses pirated software in the lawyer's letter, but a large number of legal provisions such as Computer Regulations and Tort Liability Law are listed, which are extremely simple. Initially, it is judged that the other party may have insufficient evidence and the chances of winning the case are not great. It should be noted that it is a technical job to evaluate the level of evidence held by the other party or the ability of the other party to obtain evidence. Remember not to be careless. In practice, there are many cases in which software companies obtain evidence through administrative law enforcement means such as "surprise seizure" by the industrial and commercial bureau or the copyright bureau, and then file a civil lawsuit to win the case.
4. Negotiate purchase and purchase genuine software at preferential price.
According to the compensation amount estimated by the self-inspection result, negotiate with the software company about software purchase.
5 for industrial and commercial law enforcement and litigation preservation.
If the negotiation fails, the software company may take drastic measures such as industrial and commercial reporting or litigation preservation to exert pressure. First of all, we should try to avoid stimulating software companies to defend their rights fiercely. If it is really unavoidable, employees can be asked to temporarily delete relevant software or work from home after the negotiation deadlock. In case of unexpected law enforcement, we should fully cooperate with law enforcement officers or judges to investigate and collect evidence.
Handle litigation
If you think that the software company's plan is unacceptable, you should actively prepare for it. At present, the calculation standard and order of infringement compensation stipulated in China's copyright law;
(1) Actual losses of creditors;
(two) the illegal income of the infringer;
(3) statutory compensation, less than 500,000 yuan. The amount of compensation should also include the reasonable expenses paid by the obligee to stop the infringement, such as attorney's fees and notarial fees for evidence preservation.
7. Software substitution
That is, use alternative software and no longer use the software involved. Due to the reasons related to industry habits, staff training costs, historical data processing, etc., it is not easy to replace the work, and the software with similar quality in the market often needs to be paid. Softshop also classifies the same type of software to facilitate the comparison and selection of the same type of software.
Legal basis:
People's Republic of China (PRC) Civil Procedure Law
Article 116 If the person subjected to execution maliciously colludes with others to evade performing the obligations specified in legal documents through litigation, arbitration or mediation, the people's court shall impose fines and detention according to the seriousness of the case; If a crime is constituted, criminal responsibility shall be investigated according to law.