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Thursday, Aug. 19, 2010 | 1:50 a.m.
Sun archives
- Website operators use new defenses to fight R-J copyright suits (8-18-2010)
- Righthaven reaches settlements in 2 cases over R-J copyrights (8-12-2010)
- Righthaven sues Democratic Underground website over R-J posting (8-11-2010)
- 5 more websites sued over R-J story copyrights (8-10-2010)
- Websites, bloggers make moves to avoid Righthaven lawsuits (8-9-2010)
- Righthaven continues suits over R-J copyrights; 91 total (8-6-2010)
- State Democratic Party fighting R-J copyright lawsuit (8-5-2010)
- Legal attack dog sicked on websites accused of violating R-J copyrights (8-4-2010)
- Some targets of Righthaven lawsuits fighting back (8-4-2010)
- Are website copyright violations hurting newspapers' bottom line? (8-4-2010)
- Defendants in R-J copyright lawsuits speak out (8-4-2010)
- 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)
Righthaven LLC, the company suing bloggers and websites over copyright infringements involving Las Vegas Review-Journal stories, filed at least two more suits on Wednesday as its lawsuit total hit an even 100 since March.
One suit was filed in federal court in Las Vegas against Dominique Houston and the Chris Brown Network, which allegedly are associated with the website www.chrisbrownconnection.com. Review-Journal stories allegedly posted on that site this year involved the sentencing of a man for tax fraud and a Las Vegas 51s game on Memorial Day.
Court records indicate the tax fraud story was posted by a user of the chrisbrownconnection site, "jaqhiggins," while the baseball story was posted by another user, "macnorris."
In both instances, the Review-Journal was cited as the source of the story and there were links to the stories on the R-J website.
With the chrisbrownconnection.com domain name having expired on Aug. 4, Houston and others allegedly associated with that site could not be located for comment.
Another suit was filed in the same court against Hush-Hush Entertainment Inc. and PN Media Inc., which allegedly have an adult website called www.pornnewz.com.
Court records indicate a user of that site, "Tawnya," posted to the site an R-J story this year about a church that ministers to pornography stars, exotic dancers and prostitutes in the Las Vegas area.
The records indicate the www.pornnewz.com posting did not credit the R-J for the story.
A request for comment was placed with managers at the pornnewz website.
"The defendants knew, or reasonably should have known, that websites, such as the (defendant) website, are and were at all times relevant to this lawsuit, the habitual subject of postings by others of copyright-infringing content," Righthaven complained in both lawsuits, adding the defendants did not prevent, monitor for or swiftly remove such postings.
"The defendants’ failure to institute any proactive policies intended to address the posting by others of copyright-infringing content on the website constituted and constitutes the defendants’ willful blindness to copyright infringements occurring on the website," Righthaven charged in the lawsuits.
As it usually does, Righthaven in the latest suits seeks damages of $75,000 apiece and forfeiture of the defendants’ website domain names to Righthaven.
Another online commentator about Righthaven, in the meantime, on Wednesday posted a blog critical of Righthaven and its policy of suing websites and bloggers over copyrights – particularly without first filing "DMCA takedown notices" where such notices are applicable under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act.
Mike Masnick, writing at the www.techdirt.com website, called "ridiculous" assertions about Righthaven by the Review-Journal’s general counsel, Mark Hinueber.
Hinueber was quoted recently in a Corporate Counsel story as saying he hopes Righthaven’s lawsuit campaign will generate more website links to the R-J and result in less online infringement of R-J material.
"Yeah, right. Suing people linking to you is going to get more links? Considering that some of the examples of sites being sued included one that posted just four paragraphs of a 34-paragraph article ... with a link, it seems that these lawsuits are almost guaranteed to lead to less linking," Masnick wrote.
I wonder how Sherman and his "partner in crime" Righthaven found that PORNO site???
You naughty, naughty boys!!!
Well, all work and no play...um... never mind. That's just too ugly a mental image.
Hey boys, have you heard this number???
"Instant karma's gonna get you
Gonna knock you right on the head
You better get yourself together
Pretty soon you're gonna be dead"
John Lennon
Chunky says:
These headlines should read:
"Lawyers Gone Wild" "Legal System Goes Unchecked"
That's what Chunky thinks!
"particularly without first filing "DMCA takedown notices" where such notices are applicable under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act"
Website owners can force DMCA takedown notices when one of their users (not a staff person or owner) posts copyright material. That is true only if the website owner follows DMCA rules including registering contact information with the US copyright office.
If a staff person or owner of website puts copyright material on the website then one can't require DMCA takedown notices in those cases.
Copy and pasting all or significant part of copyright material without permission is copyright infringement. Linking or giving credit is not a defense in those cases.
Congratulations on hitting 100 Sherm (SgtRock). Now you can come out.
At this point, anyone who gets slapped with one of these frivolous lawsuits is an idiot! The LV Sun has been writing about these lawsuits for months now and you think people would be wise to the LVRJ's scam.
TeeSheff: I think people are pretty aware of it, but I'll bet there are a ton of sites out there, maybe "Mom and Pop's" that aren't. There are probably a lot bloggers who don't read about blogging and could be picking up their RJ stories from other sites. It's just a shame.
TeeSheff, understand that many of these lawsuits stem from forum posts that occurred months ago, before the Las Vegas Sun wrote their first great article. It cost $5,000 to settle.
I disagree TeeSheff! The U.S. is a big darn place. Outside of the Sun's excellent coverage, only mere spatterings have been offered by other U.S. papers. Gibson & Co. only came to my attention due to a word combination in one of the Sun's titles that I had set up as a Google Alert. The Sun's coverage was already several months in at that point. How on earth would EMTCity, 2asisters and most all other out-of-state websites know about Righthaven? As for the "many months ago" offered by yodiracer, do you really think May was "many months ago"? The Righthavenvictims site shows that only 6 cases occurred prior to May:
http://righthavenvictims.blogspot.com/
The RJ is trash.