A U.S. District Court Judge has ruled that The 4EVER Group must pay WEVA (Wedding & Event Videographers Association) for “obstruction of discovery,” due to misappropriation of WEVA property. The complaint was leveled mainly against Steve Wernick and Tim Ryan, formerly employees of associated with the association.

The complaint, filed over a year ago, states Ryan and Wernick misappropriated the Association’s intellectual property including, trade secret information and confidential special events data, and used the Association’s confidential data for personal gain.

Apparently, Wernick and Ryan also kept video equipment that was the property of WEVA after their termination. As far as I understand, the 4EVER Group is a breakoff of WEVA that formed after getting tired of the way WEVA was doing things. It sounds like Wernick and Ryan used the trade secrets and information they gathered while working for WEVA to aid in the formation of the 4EVER Group.

[ via WEVA ]

UPDATE: I am bumping this up to the top because one, I accidentally deleted the original post, and, two, it looks like the story from WEVA’s website is not all that it seems. A tip led me to this website: Wakeupweva.org. The forums show more fully what’s going on. However, I found the best summary in a post by Ken Ehrhart.

UPDATE 2: I received this email directly from Steve Wernick. My reply is below -

An associate sent me a link to your web site. By posting the WEVA news release with the headline as it exists “WEVA Wins Suit Against 4EVER Group” you have posted something that is demonstrably false. Going further, the article states that Tim Ryan and I were “former employees”. That is also demonstrably false. In your final paragraph, you draw conclusions based solely on the information provided by WEVA. While we appreciate that you finally provided balance by linking to the Ken Ehrhart piece, I must insist that you correct the facts.

1. WEVA did NOT win a suit. WEVA won a minor ruling on a procedural matter that does not impinge upon the facts of the case. I can provide you with the court document to prove this.
2. Neither Tim Ryan nor I were ever WEVA employees. I can provide you with documentation from one of their many lawyers as confirmation. WEVA did not even retain us directly; rather, WEVA hired our individual production companies. Our business relationship with WEVA was that of independent contractors.

We have absolutely no issue with you publishing any press release. In a situation where you have the facts so demonstrably wrong, we need to provide the correct information. For the future, if WEVA provides you a press release that relates to The 4EVER Group, I would respectfully request that we be given the opportunity to fact-check.

Steve Wernick
Director of Development
www.4EVERGroup.org
***-***-****

Dear Steve,

I sincerely appreciate your concern for the post in question, and am grateful for the information you have provided. I have, as you know, taken action to correct the post by providing an update that clearly states there is something wrong with the information from WEVA. I will also post your e-mail to allow readers to see direct feedback from you.

If bloggers always directly changed their posts on account of errors or pressure, the blogging world would not be as pure to the extent it is now. I have updated the post’s title and your “employee” status to “association” with WEVA, but have kept the original text there so that anyone who reads it will understand the full gamut of the situation.

It seems that WEVA (or at least some of its constituents) has a lot to answer for. They will certainly lose face in light of this unfolding story.

Respectfully,
Digital Camcorder News