In High School, I bought a domain name for localcomputerbusiness.com. They used the domain localcompbusiness.com, and I was surprised I got a better domain than they did for their own business. But whatever.... So I was learning web programming and wrote a PHP script that would display a copy a local business site each time someone would visit. It literally went and fetched a new copy of the site for each visitor, and presented it to visitors of the site. The script works, I pat myself on the back, and life moves on.

Fast forward 10 years. I'm married, living in another state.

This whole time, my domain names and hosting accounts have been renewing automatically. I haven't given localcomputerbusiness.com another thought. Until I receive a letter from Local Computer Business. They are threatening a lawsuit for copyright infringement for every page of the site. (Of course every page of the site is copied for every visitor - that's how it was written). Damages, they say, total about $200,000.

I mentally crap my pants, take the site down, and call the owner of Local Computer Business. They agree to meet and discuss my screwup. I drive to their location and meet them and their lawyers. I went to school with the owner of Local Computer Business. He talked to his son, who vouched for me that I was a good guy, and probably wasn't being malicious. It was all just a misunderstanding.

Business Owner agrees to settle for his attorney costs - $700 and transfer of localcomputerbusiness.com to him. The attorney costs still hurt, but not a life crushing pain that $200,000 would have been.

Boy, am I glad I had a good reputation in school. I dodged that bullet.