Coughing up big bucks!

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A big hearing in Houston federal court Monday October 22nd for Houston real estate developer Vinod Ramani, the Chief Executive of Urban Living.

A jury found Ramani guilty of taking someone else’s ideas and making money off them. In the legal world, that’s called copyright infringement and violations of the digital millennium copyright act (DMCA).

It would be hard to call what happened an accident. The jury found Ramani had violated the “dmca” more than 11,500 times, and Monday’s hearing will determine how big of a check Ramani has to write.

The punishment for each violation ranges from $2,500 to $25,000. Do the math.

Ramani could be hit with damages that could be as high as $280 million.

Houston residential design firm Preston Woods and Associates sued Urban Living and Ramani.

Urban Living had claimed they owned the rights to many architectural works used in projects around Houston. Turns out they didn’t. The rights belonged to Preston Woods and Associates.

Stay tuned. The judgement could send shock waves through the Houston real estate world.

Taking other people’s stuff and claiming it’s your own is wrong.

Let’s see if the judge will stay true to what the jury wants and hold Ramani responsible for all the counts.

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