Alleged database thief taunts Yellow, ducks High Court order

If nothing else, you have to admire Brendan Battles’ gall.

On Monday, as first reported by NBR, Yellow Pages Group and its Finda subsidiary won an interim injunction, pending a full trial, which prevented Image Group Marketing (IMG) from selling a $6500 business database.

Yellow alleges that IMG’s owner, Mr Battles, illegally copies entries from its yellow.co.nz website - reselling the pirated listings as the New Zealand Data Database Version 3.0.

But Mr Battles - who did not appear or engage any counsel to represent him at the High Court in Auckland hearing - was apparently unbowed by the ruling.

In the early hours of Tuesday morning - 1.30am, to be exact - IMG sent an email marketing its injuncted database. The message went to multiple recipients. Some were regular business owners, such as games and web developer Justin Cook, who drew the message to Computerworld’s attention.

Another recipient was none other than Yellow chief executive Bruce Cotterill, who presumably did not take up the offer to purchase the database - now being offered from a knockdown $1500.

You've been ser ... no, hang on
From there, events took an even stranger twist.

NBR has learnt that Yellow’s law firm, AJ Park, dispatched an agent to serve the injunction papers on the cocky Mr Battles.

But when the process server arrived at the defendant’s address - an apartment in the Gulf View Estate complex in Auckland’s Browns Bay - they were told by the property manager that Mr Battles had vacated.

Mr Battles had told the manager he was leaving the country.

The defendant arrived in New Zealand from his native US in 2006. Earlier this year he fell foul of the Department of Internal Affairs after switching his mass “marketing” efforts from email to cellphone text messages.

Battles now co-defendant
Yellow headed back to the High Court, and by the close of Tuesday, its lawyers had secured a fresh series of orders.

Mr Battles has now been personally named as a co-defendant.

5pm deadline
And the original High Court order - which called on IMG to cease selling its database and hand over all names of purchasers - has now been extended to require the company, and Mr Battles, to hand over all hard copies of his database and computers holding electronic copies by 5pm today.

If Mr Battles doesn’t comply, Yellow says it will begin contempt of court proceedings.

AJ Park associate Matthew Hayes told NBR that he and his client already considered Mr Battles 1.30am Tuesday email contempt of court, as even though the he was not physically served with papers, he was emailed a copy of the injunction - and email is one medium with which the defendant is undeniably familiar.

Got such a long way to go, til he makes it to the border of Mexico
NBR inquired what Yellow planned to do if Mr Battles managed to relocate to a country with less pressing copyright or email marketing laws, then continued to sell his allegedly pilfered version of its database from afar. For now, its legal team is focusing on today’s deadline.

Late yesterday, however, AJ Park staff were planning to contact the Department of Internal Affairs to relay news of the controversial resident’s travel plans.