Law firm network QualitySolicitors has paid money out of court to settle a copyright infringement dispute with professional services consultancy Best Practice Online (BPO).

BPO alleged QualitySolicitors infringed its copyright in relation to more than 100 articles published on the QualitySolicitors website in 2009 and early 2010. QualitySolicitors said it had reproduced articles from its member firms’ websites without knowing a ‘small portion’ had originated from BPO, and removed the articles as soon as BPO had informed it of a potential copyright breach.

BPO has agreed to stay its action for infringement of copyright with regard to the articles. QualitySolicitors has agreed not to reproduce the works of BPO without a licence and agreed to pay the consultancy’s legal costs. BPO said that once its costs have been paid, it will donate the rest of the settlement to charity.

BPO managing director Joe Reevy said: ‘Our intellectual property is the lifeblood of our business and we will always defend our IP rights when we discover significant unauthorised use of our material.’

QualitySolicitors chief executive Craig Holt said his organisation had had no way of knowing that the information was copyrighted. He said although QualitySolicitors was ‘very confident’ it could have successfully defended a legal action, it had taken a commercial decision to offer a £5,000 settlement, which was accepted.

He said: ‘[We] took a very commercial approach to avoiding time-consuming litigation at a time when we are totally focused on developing our national legal brand.’