Facebook
Fark
Digg
Reddit
Stumble
Steven Gibson is CEO of Righthaven, which buys copyrights from the Las Vegas Review-Journal, then sues people who have violated those copyrights.
Wednesday, Aug. 4, 2010 | 2 a.m.
Sun archives
- Five more R-J copyright lawsuits filed (8-3-2010)
- R-J mob source hit with copyright suit (7-27-2010)
- More copyright lawsuits filed over Review-Journal stories (7-23-2010)
- Conservative website among 3 sued over R-J copyrights (7-20-2010)
- 3 suits over alleged R-J copyright infringements bring total to 72 (7-16-10)
- 5 more suits filed over alleged R-J copyright violations (7-15-10)
- Nevada Democratic Party hit with R-J copyright lawsuit (7-9-10)
- 5 more websites face R-J copyright lawsuits (7-8-10)
- Six more suits filed over R-J copyrights (7-1-10)
- Three more websites hit with R-J copyright suits (6-29-10)
- R-J copyright suit filed against newspaper source (6-25-10)
- 3 more R-J copyright suits filed; defendant responds (6-10-10)
- 8 more websites sued over R-J copyrights; 34 total (6-5-10)
- Former news anchor among targets of new R-J copyright suits (5-30-10)
- 4 more copyright suits over R-J stories brings total to 22 (5-28-10)
- 4 more sites sued over alleged R-J copyright infringements (5-20-10)
- 14th website sued over R-J copyright allegations (5-17-10)
- More suits over alleged R-J copyrights bring number to 13 (5-14-10)
- Suits accuse groups of posting copyrighted R-J stories (5-5-10)
- Two more websites sued over posting of R-J stories (5-3-10)
- Sixth copyright suit filed over R-J stories on websites (4-26-10)
- 3 copyright suits filed over R-J stories on Web sites (4-16-10)
- Suits accuse 2 groups of posting copyrighted R-J stories online (3-17-10)
Marc Randazza
When it comes to fighting copyright theft in the news industry — the piracy of stories, editorials, columns, photos and videos — there are watchdogs and there are attack dogs.
The Las Vegas Review-Journal and its copyright enforcement partner, a Las Vegas startup called Righthaven LLC, are squarely in the attack-dog category.
In a strategic campaign that is attracting growing interest nationwide in legal and media circles, Righthaven — without warning — has sued at least 86 website owners in federal court in Las Vegas since March for copyright infringement.
Such aggressiveness is unusual in the newspaper industry because most newspapers have acted like watchdogs — playing nice but firm with copyright infringers by asking them to take down their stories and replace them with links that direct readers to the source newspaper. That softball tactic avoids wasting money and time on lawyers and lawsuits, and turns copyright infringers into allies who drive traffic to newspaper websites.
When a call or e-mail to an infringing website doesn’t do the trick, newspapers have issued “takedown orders” — requests to remove the lifted content.
But from the get-go, Righthaven hits copyright violators with lawsuits seeking $75,000 in damages and forfeiture of their website domain names.
Righthaven’s legal initiative has critics calling it a frivolous-lawsuit-and-shakedown campaign aimed not at gaining justice for Righthaven, but at putting money in its pockets — charges denied by Righthaven and its entrepreneurial CEO, Las Vegas attorney Steven Gibson.
“We own the copyright. To call it a ‘shakedown’ is to ignore 200 years of copyright law,” Gibson said.
Righthaven, which employs about 10 people tracking down and suing copyright infringers, claims to have other media partners, although Gibson declined to name them. The newspaper industry — hit hard by bankruptcies, layoffs and the closures of papers — needs Righthaven’s services to stop the diversion of newspaper website users to infringing websites, Gibson said.
Righthaven’s procedure has been to “troll” to find an infringement of an R-J copyright to a specific story. It then buys the copyright for that story from the R-J’s owner, Stephens Media LLC, and afterward sues the infringer.
Buying the copyright is an important step because it allows Righthaven to seek statutory damages. (Some of the defendants are arguing that Righthaven lacks standing to sue them because Righthaven didn’t own the copyrights at the time of the initial infringement.)
No one disputes the right of the R-J to protect its copyrights, and it’s obvious from Righthaven’s lawsuits that the defendants or their message-board users have been cutting and pasting R-J stories without authorization.
“Bloggers and citizen journalists must comply with the law,” said Sam Bayard, assistant director of the Citizen Media Law Project at Harvard University Law School’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society. After Righthaven started filing its suits, the Harvard center added Righthaven to its database of potential legal threats to bloggers and citizen journalists.
Added media attorney Marc Randazza: “I have no doubt many of them are technically in violation of the copyright law.”
Suing the source
But it’s not the R-J’s copyright claims that have led to the outcry over the suits, rather it’s the way Righthaven is going about enforcing them.
In online forums and news stories, Righthaven has been widely pounded on for suing mom-and-pop-type bloggers, nonprofit groups and special-interest websites that can’t afford to fight back in court — and for hitting copyright infringers with suits rather than asking that they take down the stories and replace them with links to the originals.
“What these people are doing is the equivalent of cutting a clipping out of the newspaper and saving it,” said Randazza, who runs Randazza Legal Group in San Diego and Miami.
In some cases, the R-J has taken a public relations hit after Righthaven sued companies, individuals and nonprofit groups that have for years been sources for R-J news stories and columns, including the Democratic Party of Nevada, Las Vegas public relations executive Steve Stern and former mob figure Anthony Fiato.
The criticism has been sharpest when Righthaven sued individuals such as gaming industry observer Anthony Curtis, as well as companies, for posting R-J stories about themselves — stories made possible because they provided information to the R-J and cooperated with its reporters.
“It’s ironic and stupid,” Curtis said when informed of the suit on June 25. “If they’re going to sue us for quoting us, that gets really stupid.”
‘Lawful but preposterous’
Like many of the defendants, Curtis first heard he was being sued not from the R-J or Righthaven, but from the Las Vegas Sun, which finds the suits during routine court checks and contacts the defendants for comment.
Defendants such as Curtis may have strong “fair use” legal defenses if they were simply using the content to show what the R-J had written about them, said attorney Chris Ridder of the San Francisco law firm of Ridder, Costa & Johnstone LLP. The firm defended the Media Awareness Project, a group advocating drug policy reform, against a Righthaven lawsuit.
Righthaven and the R-J also received unflattering national attention when Righthaven sued a Boston woman who publishes a noncommercial blog about cats, City Felines Blog, written from the point of view of a cat. Her mistake was to post a single R-J story about birds killed in a fire.
The woman, Allegra Wong, responded to the lawsuit by telling the court in a letter: “City Felines Blog is an online diary, a chronology of my thoughts about felines and about the sacredness of all creatures.” Her apparent offense, she told the court, was posting on her blog an R-J story about a fire at a nature sanctuary. “Full credit and a link were given to the Las Vegas Review-Journal,”’ she wrote in the letter.
Critics of Righthaven wonder why it is willing to sustain such public relations hits in the pursuit of monetary damages.
“It’s like setting a hungry wild pig loose in a china shop to find a piece of bacon. It’ll get the bacon, but it will destroy everything else in the process,” said Randazza, who defended the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws against a Righthaven suit.
Stephen Bates, an assistant professor at UNLV’s Hank Greenspun School of Journalism, called the Righthaven lawsuits “the McDonald’s coffee cases of copyright litigation — lawful but preposterous. They’re a waste of judicial resources.”
“Like most writers, I’ve had my articles posted online without permission. I’m usually glad to get the attention. When I’m not, I ask that they be taken down. That’s how these things are handled. People go to court as a last resort, not as a first resort — especially when the infringer is a small nonprofit or a blogger who probably doesn’t know better,” Bates said. “Filing suit is a lousy form of community relations. When the defendant is a source for the story, as in the (Anthony) Curtis case, it’s ridiculous.”
Protecting the copyright
The Righthaven/Review-Journal lawsuit initiative does have its defenders.
“The thing that’s killing the media is the devaluation of its assets, something in which it is a willing participant,” Las Vegas freelance writer Steve Friess wrote last week in a column for Las Vegas Weekly, a sister publication of the Las Vegas Sun. “This could be a first step toward reminding people that information may want to be free, but those who provide it have bills to pay, too.”
Gibson notes that one of the nation’s largest newspaper companies, Tribune Co., filed for bankruptcy protection in 2008. Copyright infringement is diluting the value of the content generated daily by newspapers such as Tribune Co.’s Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times, as well as other newspapers such as the R-J and the Las Vegas Sun, Gibson said.
However, when Tribune Co. filed for bankruptcy reorganization in December 2008, the supposed threat of copyright infringement to its online audience wasn’t mentioned. Rather, Tribune was unable to service its $13 billion in debt because of dramatic declines in advertising revenue caused by the recession.
In explaining the Righthaven lawsuits, R-J Publisher Sherman Frederick said on his blog that Righthaven is involved in the protection of journalism. He said the R-J’s parent company, Stephens Media, had “grubstaked” Righthaven and that Righthaven’s sole purpose “is to protect copyrighted content.”
Frederick wrote that he hoped Righthaven “will stop people from stealing our stuff” and secondarily that it will find other clients trying to stop copyright theft.
The Corvette analogy
To explain the suits, Frederick used an analogy involving him displaying a beautiful 1967 Corvette in his front yard.
People would be welcome to stand on the sidewalk admiring the car and could even recommend that their friends come see. “There’d be nothing wrong with that. I like my ’67 Vette and I keep it in the front yard because I like people to see it,” Frederick wrote. “But then, you entered my front yard, climbed into the front seat and drove it away. I’m absolutely, 100 percent not OK with that. In fact, I’m calling the police and reporting that you stole my car. Every jury in the land would convict you.”
Randazza has a different version of the Corvette story.
“The real analogy is this: You have a 1967 Corvette in your driveway, and you charge people $2.95 to take pictures of it. Someone drives by and doesn’t know that you charge to take pictures of it. They take a picture, and you come running out of your house with a baseball bat and demand $5,000 or you’ll smash in the windows on their car,” he told both MediaPost.com, a website covering the media industry, and the Las Vegas Sun.
Randazza said that, particularly for mom-and-pop-type blogsites and websites, the individuals being sued may want to simply admit they made a mistake and hope the court awards minimal damages.
In copyright cases, damages can be as little as $200 or as much as $150,000 per infringement.
None of the contested Righthaven cases has advanced to the point where a trial has been scheduled. Judges as of Friday had not yet ruled on the motions for dismissal or the other legal arguments by defendants.
Randazza says it will be interesting to see if any of the federal judges award much more than a few hundred dollars in these mom-and-pop cases — given the defendants’ lack of intent to steal anything and the lack of any profit they earned by reposting R-J stories.
wonder if they want to buy a media copyright infringement of ours
Comment removed by moderator. Off-topic.
I noticed the picture of this sleeze ball and his ever-present head set-what a joke.Looks to be one of the all-time bottom feeders.A good fit for the RJ.
Scum.
You wonder how Lawyers get a bad rep???
Does this bottom-feeding TROLL work for the RJ
AS WELL AS RUNNING RIGHTHAVEN???
Make no mistake Gibson's motivation is not to protect anyone. It's to make $$$$. He has a longstanding history of trolling for business, convincing clients they have a viable cause of action that will net them just rewards, running up their legal expenses, with limited results. Gibson & the RJ are perfect bedfellows. It's all about making money with BS.
Gibson is not wearing that headset properly --- he probably ought clip it to the waist of his pants, in the back. this way people could hear him speak more clearly.
Ambulance Chaser is too polite a term for these guys...what scum they are...
My points on the story....
1) There is absolutely no legal defense to copy and paste all or part of copyright material. You can turn blue in your face and it still will not change the law. It is direct violation of "Fair Use". It does not matter if you cite the source or give a link. It does not matter what your intent is.
Instead of copying and pasting, these defendents could have posted analysis about the stories and then provided a link. They could have quoted a few sentences from the story. They can't cut and paste the whole story. They can't cut and paste a significant part of the story.
2) The damages being sued for are statutory. The law says you get specific amount of damages for each instance of violation. The plantiff does not have to show how much harm has occurred and then prove the economic value of that harm. The reason for this part of law is to scared people from stealing copyright in the first place.
3. Point two could be the main strategy behind LVRJ using Righthaven. The word will spread and more and more people will not be stealing LVRJ in the first place.
In fact, this strategy will encourage all people to use common sense and stop copying and pasting all copyright material from all sources.
These people that are copying and pasting must either be extremely dumb or have very low ethics.
It is an concept easy to understand. It is wrong to copy and paste all or a significant part of somebody's intellectual property. You don't have to be the pope or a rocket engineer to understand that.
Of course, everybody knows that the Sun has a hard on for LVRJ.
I bet good money that the Greenspuns have given marching orders to the staff to print as much junk about LVRJ as possible and freely to use the news section to do it. And as good little good boys and girls the staff abandons any notion of intergity and willfully obey orders from the guy that sign the checks.
It is silly, stupid but heck I would not expect anything else.
This has to be story number 1,233,962,392,393 by the Sun on this topic. I am looking forward story numbered 1,233,962,392,394th.
It is entertaining.
The tacky dark paneling and 1960s wallpaper screams discount bordello. Forget copyright infringment, he should be suing the interior decorator.
Produces and/or builds nothing, yet make a lot of money... fits right in with the "new" american economy that just takes and takes.
i wonder if the r-j has ever run an editorial on tort reform???
Comment removed by moderator. Flaming.
So you, Joe Public, get into the RJ news article, the article is about you, but the RJ has copywrited the story and you will be sued if you send it to your family and friends? Can I copywright every word that comes out of my mouth, my dreams, my thoughts??
There's no excuse to cut/paste an entire article. If you blog you've got to know that.
However, in this situation, bat-poop-crazy Frederick is taking a fighter squadron to mow down girl scouts.
Righthaven is another business that seeks profit without adding anything of value to society.
It is spelled "sicced". The damn dog is not ill. Looks like the Sun needs a new proofreader. I am available!
He looks like a smug, uptight Republican who's watched Wall Street (the movie) once too many times. What a banal cliche is this guy. This guy has a face only a drunk mother would like. Can you say shakedown?
The irony is that if you pick up the RJ, most of the content is AP stories. Surprised to learn they even have any reporters left. Don't mean to suck up to the Sun but the only reason I buy the RJ is to get to the Sun. I wouldn't use the RJ for bird cage liner.
tonyvegas: "sicked" and "sicced" are both acceptable past-tense spellings of "sic."
Now back to our normally scheduled program.
I understand the copyright argument and such, but thse sites Wronghaven goes after are probably read by only a bucketful of people interested in the subject matter that the sites cover. If a site like Yahoo news or CNN published RJ articles, I could see a reason for a suit. But for the smaller sites and blogs - several posters referred to them as mom-&-pop - a cease-&-desist order would be more than sufficient. Here's hoping the court throws Wronghaven out on their ear.
As the record industry found, they will spend much more then they will ever receive handling the problem like this.
They have the right to protect their copyrights but this is not going to prove to be a good way to do it. In time Steven Gibson will no longer mess with this. He won't make money at it long term. A simple take down notice/email resolves the problem 99% of the time. You take the other 1% to court.
Most of these bloggers have no money so they will collect nothing. Most of the judges will only award a couple hundred dollars and that is not going to pay the bills.
The RJ has lost some advertisers over this matter already. Long term it will have a negative impact on their bottom line.
It is their paper and their content, they can handle it anyway they wish but I think they have been misled by Steven Gibson by doing it his way.
Time will tell.
Enhancing the reputations of lawyers one suit at a time...
Wow. I actually agree with SgtRock for once. Thats odd.
It is copyright infringement to copy/paste the story into your own website. Fair Use for such a thing would be incredibly limited (e.g. the story is about you and you're clarifying/refuting the points in the story, paragraph by paragraph).
People do need a healthier respect for copyright - that you cant just copy/paste stuff. But RightHaven is doing it the wrong way, morally speaking. DMCA takedown notices would be the upstanding way to do this, but like I said before, it wouldn't be profitable and thus, they aren't interested.
Relax people.If her dream comes true, Sharon Angle will soon be taking control of the media and running it in a much more orderly fashion . Maybe she'll appoint Sherm Media Czar and he can stop suing people. Right, Sharon ? Oh, sorry ,didn't mean to ask a question .
Two comments: You gotta love the two cans of furniture polish evident in the back cabinet - get the wood shining for the pic! Nice vest. This guy is a toolbox.
Bottom feeders everywhere these days. I accidentally reposted an RJ comment here recently. Now I need a lawyer. Anyone know if Elizabeth Halverson is back in private practice again? Maybe if I rub her feet and fetch her meals, she will do my case pro boner. I mean pro bono.
Let's see, according to the article:
"Righthaven's procedure has been to "troll" to find an infringement of an R-J copyright to a specific story. It then buys the copyright for that story from the R-J's owner, Stephens Media LLC, and afterward sues the infringer."
=====
If that's true, it appears the RJ doesn't care enough about its copyrights to enforce them and instead it is willing to sell them off.
But let's look a little further, shall we?
Before it sells its copyrights, the RJ/Stephens Media is made aware that some of their copyrighted material is in violation of their copyright protections.
Yet, the RJ/Stephens does nothing to enforce its copyrights, but sells its copyright knowing full-well that the purchaser intends to sue the alleged "infringer."
It would seem a pretty good argument could be made to a JURY that the RJ didn't care enough to make any effort to enforce its copyright and that such a lackadaisical attitude actually showed a willingness for the copyrighted material to become PUBLIC DOMAIN.
The fact that the buyer was aware the RJ knowingly and willingly failed to enforce its copyright and arguably allowed it to become public domain serves to remove the grounds for the buyer to seek statutory damages.
======
Maybe if I find the time I'll post the links to support the legal arguments presented here, maybe not.
=====
OF GREATEST INTEREST:
What is interesting though, is that at the TIME THIS IS POSTED, there is no copyright notice for one of the articles, "The TSA's mini 'Watch List'" which can be found at:
http://www.lvrj.com/blogs/sherm/The_TSAs...
(That will likely change soon.)
Additionally, I made a reasonable effort to find anything about copyright anywhere on the lvrj.com website and was unsuccessful. It may be hidden on the site somewhere, but to me it might be reasonable for someone to assume it is not copyrighted at all. Maybe.
=====
The same holds true with patents and trademarks. If a holder fails to make a reasonable effort to enforce its intellectual property rights, it surrenders those rights. At a minimum, it surrenders the right to be awarded damages. (Or some such thing.)
Certainly even a Las Vegas jury will be able to understand that.
Oops.
Actually the copyright notice at the very bottom of the web page doesn't assign the copyright to Righthaven, it assigns it to Stephens Media.
Copyright Stephens Media LLC 1997 - 2010
=====
These cases are nowhere as cut-and-dried as the plaintiffs probably think they will be.
Cognastics,
As the story points out, Righthaven buys the copyright from Stephens Media after Righthaven finds an infringer.
So the only way this guy makes money is buying copyrighted content and sit around trolling for infringements of that content and then suing so he can stuff his pockets? I'm sure his law professor is real proud of him. Just the kind of guy you'd like to have as a neighbor...what a joke.
First, I think the Sun did a fine, comprehensive job today.
Second, the purpose of these suits remains elusive to me. I know it appears cut and dried to others, in discussions with attorneys I'm told that it is a clear violation, but by the same token, some courts frown on this sort of flood of litigation, especially when it seems clear that most, if not all of the defendants would have removed the offending posts after receiving a call or a letter.
Times are tough out there these days and most of the defendants certainly aren't able to pay an attorney to mount a defense, nor even able to pay a settlement. I would guess that would leave them with no option but to file bankruptcy to discharge the judgements.
And, finally, the RJ, with a static circulation of what, under 200,000, is doing little but creating ill will for most. My guess is that at some point, we might see some sort of protest group that has a serious impact, say one that creates a boycott of advertisers.
As someone who post stories about what is happening in Vegas and the gaming industry, when I found out about what the R-J was doing I started to delete anything that had a link to the R-J that someone posted! I don't want to see any copyright infringements on my site, but can not stop anyone from putting a post up on the board; the only thing I can do is monitor everyday and remove anything I see that came from the R-J!
The way that I post any story is to change the headline, do my own writing for a lead-in on the story after I gather information from other sources! Than put a link to the Las Vegas Sun story:
Copyright Infringements are they hurting the bottom line of new papers?
One of the local new papers are suing websites owners for posting stories that came from their news paper the R-J! Are they are losing readership, and is their advertisers now getting what they paid for, with their circulation dropping is this a smart thing to do?
This story is brought to you by the Las Vegas Sun:
http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010/aug...
I hope that this would be the right way to post a story on any site, that way the news paper gets the new readers, they never would have had, their readership goes up, and their advertisers are happy!
I immediately canceled my subscription to the RJ a couple of months ago when I first became aware of this situation. I would suggest that anyone out there who is as appalled as I am should consider doing the same. I have no interest in visiting their website again.
I hope that the RJ and Righthaven enjoy the money they extort from cat bloggers while they can.
I do think that bloggers posting content from a newspaper should explicitly attribute that content to its' source. However, it seems that suing re-publishers of content is one of the quickest ways to send a media outlet into irrelevance. In the era of Wikipedia and Amazon.com, you'd think newspapers would want their content reaching the broadest number of people.
If this becomes a cash industry, I'm just waiting for the lawyer that will begin to identify people that are interviewed by reporters and who give the quotes/content allowing reporters to write their copyrighted articles. Shouldn't folks providing reporters with the content receive some of the "damages" as well?
I can just see it-
"Hey, you just copyrighted a story that contained one of my quotes. I didn't know you were going to do that. And the reporter never asked me to sign a waiver that would have allowed my quote appear in his copyrighted story."
Looks to me like a smug, arrogant, insecure person who lives vicariously through the power he presumably gains by suing everyone he can. What a scumbag he is. Vegas is full of these posers. There, he got his 15 minutes. Oh, and what's with the headset buddy, trying to show everyone how important you are? There are so many insecure issues with this man that we can see just from the photo, a psychologist would have a field day...
This guy will settle all these cases and end up with a few mil---that's his only goal--get rich quick!
Some important relevant details surrounding this story have been omitted -- such as, what are the details involving the permission process, contacts, restrictions, processing times, costs etc. as well as details surrounding copyright purchases and finally what case histories surrounding these type of law suits have already determined.
: {
I just wonder when the Sun AND the R-J will charge us all a fee for just reading the drivel that we all put on here. I'll bet I'm the only one that will pay for it. I think a 100 dollar fee per year to read the papers is fair. Plus another 100 a year for the right to comment on the articles. I bet another 100 bucks we will lose birdiedreamin. Unless he can figure a way for the county to pay for it.
What's up with that headset thing? -- weird.
A similar shakedown was tried in CA a few years ago -- but involving disability accomodations at private businesses.
A law firm (just like Righthaven) would use disabled people to find the most minor "violations" of disability access at a business. Many times there was not even a violation -- just a "perception" there was a violation. Example: A toilet paper dispenser would be a 1/4 inch to high from the floor in a stall.
Then the law firm would sue the business for violating "state and federal disability" laws. This law firm filed hundreds of lawsuits against small businesses in CA.
The business owners who had neither the time nor resources would just settle with the law firm -- none of these cases ever got to court. Usual amount paid to "settle" the lawsuit was $500-$5000 dollars. This was a shakedown operation pure and simple. It went on for years until enough business owners took a stand and fought this type of legal blackmail.
None of these lawsuits will go to trial ever -- that's not the point. This law firm will conveniently "settle" with all parties for an agreed upon amount for the "copyright" violations.
This is just a greedy lawyer who has found a legal way to extract money from unspecting people, using copyright infringement law. I guarantee you the intent of the law was not to punish some person who quoted a few sentences of a story on their blog. Shameful.
I quote Shakespeare to end my post (I think he was talking about a lawyer here):
"A knave; a rascal; an eater of broken meats; a base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited, hundred-pound, filthy, worsted-stocking knave; a lily-livered, action-taking knave."
(King Lear, 2.2.14), Kent
Lets hope that certain individuals get what they have coming. Aside from that, hopfully they will file so many suits and have so many obligations to the courts that the courts start fining THEM for wasting the court's time. Perhaps those being sued band together, and have an attorney file charges of frivoulous lawsuits against this company, EACH IN DIFFERENT VENUES. Make them physically respond for depositions, etc.. or default.. I imagine that would not look good at license renewal time.
The DMCA creates a safe harbor for a lot of the people he accused. They should take advantage of it and countersue him.
i guess he got bored of chasing ambulances....
One more thing that was inadvertantly posted to another thread:
It appears Mr. Gibson and Righthaven may have just what they are wishing for. Shouldn't they be going after defendants with deeper pockets? Someone like MicroSoft, maybe?
I'm just asking because, unless I'm mistaken, MicroSoft provides free websites that end with the live.com extension.
So, shouldn't they amend their complaint to include MicroSoft since they have already sued "MarionsWord.spaces.live.com?"
Maybe we should all give them a call and encourage them to pick on someone their own size.
AS the articles reads:
"Marion Valentine, a military retiree in Mississippi, said he received the Righthaven lawsuit and promptly threw it in the trash. Court records show a June 10 R-J editorial was posted on Valentine's blog on the blog site marionsword.spaces.live.com, with the R-J receiving no credit for the information. The editorial complained about the nation's "vast and unwieldy federal bureaucracy," and "the pipe-dream agenda of left-wing academics and government employee unions."
Steven Gibson...what a douchebag. I had this tool as a professor at UNLV one semester. I remember some of the students in class would make fun of him because he tried so hard to be cool & chic. It doesn't surprise me that the beady-eyed professor is despised by so many people; at least that's what I gather from the other comments.
His parents should be sued for making that POS.
god, how much of a jerkwad do you have to be say "wait, stop...i gotta put on my headset so everyone will see how busy i am".
don't cancel your r-j subscription. that really doesn't hurt them that much.
boycott the r-j's ADVERTISERS, folks. that's how you send a message.
The American dream disturbs and intrigues. Our laws can create profit for those who are willing to make the uncomfortable call. Look for opportunity utilizing search engines. Purchase the copyright and then sue the party for damages. It reminds me of the motorcycle cops who sit on Flamingo and Las Vegas Blvd and write tickets all nite long. The perfect sting is what Vegas is all about. It sucks.
Such a waste of time and space about an ambulance chaser.
Considering the needed capital required to purchase rights on LVRJ's content... Where does the money come from for Righthaven to even purchase said copyrights?? Is Righthaven only limited to LVRJ content.. Stephen's owns many papers throughout the US and share's content within it's own circle... some infringement may occur with information published in several markets that would lead back to Las Vegas. I feel Righthaven is more than a partner with LVRJ.
I believe Righthaven is one of many spokes tied to the wheel wrought by a powerful family in the hub of Central Arkansas.
When it is the big guys suing the little guys the right wingers are suddenly very pro regulation & anti free market, and they suddenly forget all about their normal corporate sponsored mantra of "tort reform."
Right wing hypocrisy? Nothing new here.
Isn't it illegal for an attorney to "partner" with a non-attorney to generate business?
Bar Association needs to be looking at this just to protect whatever remaining goodwill lawyers may have.
Comment removed by moderator. Name calling.
Hmmmm, I see other descriptive words posted, sorry if mine was nearest the truth!
I don't agree with the way this is being handled either and a simple "take-down" would have been sufficient. What I don't understand is that these copyrights are being done "after the fact" so my question is: How is he getting away with this from a legal point of view? {FN36: 17 U.S.C. 411}
I posted a few website links below for Copyright laws, and if I read correctly, he should not be allowed to proceed with "litigation" if in fact no copyright was initiated at the time of publication.
This is what I found interesting about Copyright Law...
Before an infringement suit may be filed in court, registration is necessary for works. If registration is made within three months after publication of the work or prior to an infringement, statutory damages and attorney's fees will be available to the copyright owner in court actions. Otherwise, only an award of "actual damages and profits" is available. The copyright registration is effective on the date the Copyright Office "receives" all required elements. Registration is "required before any infringement suit can be filed"...{FN36: 17 U.S.C. 411}
In a case where the infringer sustains the burden of proving, and the court finds, that such infringer was not aware and had no reason to believe that his or her acts constituted an infringement of copyright, the court in its discretion may reduce the award of statutory damages to a sum of not less than $200.
This is a good read for Copyright Laws and Recommendations:
http://www.copyright.gov/1201/2010/initi...
http://digital-law-online.info/lpdi1.0/t...
If I were those individuals, I would go to court "Pro Se" and let the courts decide. I can't imagine anyone with a "Cat" blog not being able to prove they are an innocent infringer.
We need tort reform! Too many stupid lawsuits are ruining this country! LOL
bar association. haha. i had an attorney that i finally was granted a restraining order against because i found out she had given MONEY to the judge that ruled against me in court, (even though i never got a subpoena, and was not allowed to show any evidence in my defense, and one of the people that testified for the lawyer had denied me evidence...PUBLIC documents) and her and the judge never disclosed they were in bed together and when i wrote a formal complaint to the bar association...they "saw nothing that warranted more investigation".
so, basically...the bar association is a bunch of creepy lawyers looking out for other creepy lawyers.
"The DMCA creates a safe harbor for a lot of the people he accused. They should take advantage of it and countersue him."
There is no safe habor if the owner or a staff member of website copies and pastes copyright material.
There is a little safe harbor if a Joe or Jane user posts copyright material in like a comment section.
That safe habor only exists if the owner of the website registers contact information with the US Copyright office and pays a fee with US Copyright office and has information on their own website with the contact information.
Plus they have to quickly remove copyright material when a take down notice is given.
Well, if this doesn't put a damper in their advertising dollars I don't know what else will. I personally think this is what they are trying to do, "get bad press" so they can file Bankruptcy protection, re-group, and screw all their investors. Might not be exactly the way it goes down, but might be some truth in it too!
Just want to say for the record that content (essays, photos, opinions) are intellectual property and that includes online news stories and republishing without permission is illegal. As a content producer (photographer, artist, marketer et al) I'm sensitive to this.
However, this goes beyond the pale from what I'm reading. This only hurts you RJ because I certainly won't repost your content, which I'm sure others will also be apprehensive to do so as well.
1) You can go here to see the weekly specials: http://www.frys.com/template/onad/produc...
2) At places like Fry's where they have "weekly" specials sometimes the prices go up and not down (I know I work at retail like Fry's long ago)
3) If you don't buy the LVRJ then you are also hurting the Sun, too.
But that is your right.
You can not choose to buy or visit their web sites.
Q) How many Attorney Jokes are there?
A) 3. All of the rest of them are true...
This tool lends credence to the saying that 99% of Lawyers give the rest of them a bad name.
If you go to Wikipedia.com and look up the word "TOOL" you will see this money grubber's picture. Same one that is on here. Nice headset, what is he playing Halo at work again?
Rightklaven should sue Sean Hannity who makes reference to RJ Polls without giving credit.
How much revenue does the RJ make from advertising?
Gibson is quoted elsewhere saying that he sees thousands to millions of possible lawsuits... potentially $75 million to $75 billion. Looks like actually printing the newspaper is superfluous; they'll make more from demand letters. Of course, that business model is self-limiting as outside sources will eventually ignore all RJ articles.
Gibson / Righthaven is a miserable ambulance chaser. How is LVRJ defending their copyright by selling it to off for legal harrassment and threat of litigation ?
This is disgusting and deplorable. I will not participate in any discussions on LVRJ anymore, and not post any links to LVRJ in any forums, either. I have canceled my subscription already, and am encouraging others to do the same.
JimmyHoofa has it right. There was a fellow a while back that set up a fax machine in his office, let the number be published and then started filing lawsuits against the purveyors of junk faxes attempting to make money as a "consumer advocate" when he was really just a lazy opportunist trying to make an unscrupulous buck.
I can see your point Sgtrock but pursuing copyright infringement should be more focused and like any business decision it should have a healthy cost/benefit analysis performed. You can clearly see that there is indeterminable damage to the RJ's good will. In my opinion the RJ didn't make a good cost-benefit assessment here and on top of that hired an ethically challenged (in my opinion) attorney.
I noticed the non-Pulitzer Prize winning Arkansas based paper has a "click here for copyright permission" link at the bottom of their stories now.
Lawyers are wonderful people who elevate and advance the quality of life for all!!!
SgtRock: Pretty much, if not all of what you write is correct. However, wouldn't you agree that there was a simpler and certainly easier way of handling this matter, that is a letter to each of the offenders? If that's not the case, I can only venture a guess as to the possibility that you're some sort of shill, as most reasonable persons, in my view, would agree that less litigation is a better course of action.
And, have you considered that many of those offending posts were done without knowledge that copyright laws were being violated. That is to say, most would say that if post something in its entirety, with full attribution and a link, well, that's okay. As we all know now it's not, so the RJ winds up suing a bunch of people who probably don't have the money to defend themselves and further soiling the paper's reputation.
Further, the Las Vegas Sun beat the RJ on its own story, which should give you an idea of the RJ's editorial and management capabilities, to say nothing of its miserable circulation.
> "click here for copyright permission" link at the bottom of their stories now.
think that's for AP story rights --- the RJ rubbish doesn't have those links.
MurrayBurns....you are saying that the LVRJ should hire staff to monitor the internet, to find people stealing their stuff and then send out please, I beg you, stop stealing our stuff letter.
Are you going to donate money for that cause..to pay for that labor and effort?
It would like a 7/11 hiring staff to locate people who stole beer from their stores and then calling up the people and asking them nicely to return the beer.
These people who are copying and pasting copyright material are either extremely dumb or have no ethics.
I have zero sympathy for them.
You do.....so I guess you are OK with stealing....can I come by your house...I need a few things...after I take them home....be sure to give me a call and nicely ask me to return them back.
Boycott the RJ now! Stop your subscriptions and delete them off your favorites... they are pure evil.
I canceled my subscription months ago, when this first came up. The best way to hit them, though, is to boycott their advertisers.
Scum sucking bottom feeding lawyers.
Stephens Media is pathetic. The publisher of the Ely Times, owned by Stephens writes a brilliant defense of the KKK in last week's paper.
A good friend recently commented about the Gibson guy looking kind of horny, so he suggested to call him "the horny attorney". But me, I refused to confirm, since considering it safer for not being sued one fine day for that kind of name-calling. So I answered, that imho that Gibson guy looks more like a greedy shark, behaving like a vulture by suing (online) newspapers for copyright theft in the news industry. My good friend also admitted, that he disliked this kind of suing and that kind of disgusting behaviour.
Regards
Banana_Joe
Steven Gibson and Righthaven serve only to horribly sidetrack and in fact terrorize small passionate groups and bloggers working on shoe string budgets to better the lives of citizens falling within middle and lower income levels who are the basis of their cause. Such groups usually do not have attorneys and in all cases mentioned, each group has linked back to the original article. There was no intention of theft, commercial resell or commercial gain in any way. Gibson and Righthaven perfectly represent what is so horribly wrong in this country: Not only the destruction of the middle and lower classes, but the annihilation of groups who strive to help them. One Gibson may successfully take down hundreds if not thousands of groups dedicated to improving the community by providing free services to its individual members at no cost to tax payers. SgtRock, you don't have a clue what dedicated members of the non-profit community stand for and the many lives in which we provide assistance to.
Who knew that in the great wake of Social Entrepreneurship -- persons who recognize social problems and use entrepreneurial principles to organize, create, and manage a venture to make social change -- would come predators such as Gibson and community destabilizers, such as the Las Vegas Review-Journal, who hired him? Newspapers that are doing well today are becoming "hyperlocal" or establishing relationships with hyperlocal entities to more closely report the true tone that stems from a unique geographical area. Gibson and the Review-Journal, however, are acting to dismantle these very areas and all in the name of "technical IP law." Furthermore, Gibson is NOT ONLY demanding money from these groups, he is demanding their domain name rights, which constitutes the entity's brand (See: Righthaven, LLC v. Citizens For Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, Inc. http://www.scribd.com/righthavenlawsuits...)
Great story by the Sun. Good job revealing threats to our freedom of speech and exposing these sleazy lawyers for what they really are.
SgtRock - you're off your rocker. I most all cases, the stories in question are years old, still available for free on RJ's website, properly attributed and include links back to LVRJ.
How again is that like stealing from a store ? That's the most idiotic compariosn I've ever heard.
BOYCOTT LVRJ !
It seems to me that the obvious solution is simply to stop reading the R-J!
If you don't read it, you won't be tempted to re-post their content, and you'll be safe from the attack dogs!
(To continue their 1967 Corvette analogy, if you don't look at the car, you won't want to take the picture and don't have to worry about his baseball bat!)
It makes you wonder about the management practices of a corproation that enacts a policy that can be best-fulfilled by boycotting their product.
Sgt Rock- Point 4- Don't buy the friggin RJ!
Shows you what happens when you graduate from a Nevada school. You go on to run a newspaper that sues the very people they go to for information.
Can't wait to see what happens the next time a RJ reporter (if they have any) ask Anthony Curtis for some information.
Not too long ago I photocopied an RJ article at my mother's house, took the copy home and showed it to three other people. Worse though, I also am guilty of allowing 5 or 7 (maybe even 9!)people to simultaneously view an RJ article on my personal computer while at a coffee shop.
To prevent such infringements on a wider scale, Righthaven could employ coffee shop spies to ferret out habitual offenders like me.
And Righthaven might also want to investigate RJ papers that can be seen laying about in people's online photos. After all, if the photo is high enough resolution, the paper might be read by zooming in on it!