I read the pdf of the letter:
It seems to me that they're using the mention of Shankman's name to get it all started, and the strange New York law for scary padding, but the bulk of their claim is copyright.
You need to look through everything and see if there's any word for word content on your site (user contributed or otherwise) that matches Shankman's site.
My guess is that they'll cede the look and feel and New York business law wackyness to create a sheen of compromise and then surprise you with some user generated content that appears on both your sites identically and claim copyright infringement.
The fog of how user generated stuff ends up on sites may confuse the court enough for them to rule against you just because Shankman's site existed first and theres "identical content". Hell, even his lawyer may not fully grok it.
If the evil runs deep, they'll plant such content themselves in the form of submissions.
Of course, talk to a lawyer, yadayada, like you haven't already! Don't underestimate them. This looks like a plan to take over your (obviously better) site. I believe that they think they can win.
Comments
I read the pdf of the letter: It seems to me that they're using the mention of Shankman's name to get it all started, and the strange New York law for scary padding, but the bulk of their claim is copyright.
You need to look through everything and see if there's any word for word content on your site (user contributed or otherwise) that matches Shankman's site.
My guess is that they'll cede the look and feel and New York business law wackyness to create a sheen of compromise and then surprise you with some user generated content that appears on both your sites identically and claim copyright infringement.
The fog of how user generated stuff ends up on sites may confuse the court enough for them to rule against you just because Shankman's site existed first and theres "identical content". Hell, even his lawyer may not fully grok it.
If the evil runs deep, they'll plant such content themselves in the form of submissions.
Of course, talk to a lawyer, yadayada, like you haven't already! Don't underestimate them. This looks like a plan to take over your (obviously better) site. I believe that they think they can win.