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Friday, Aug. 27, 2010 | 2:05 a.m.
Sun archives
- Judge questions Righthaven over R-J copyright suit costs (8-26-2010)
- Consumer group offers help to defendants over R-J copyright suits (8-25-2010)
- Righthaven CEO’s law firm in merger (8-24-2010)
- R-J accused of entrapment over copyright enforcement (8-23-2010)
- Blogger asks to pay $200 to close R-J copyright suit (8-20-2010)
- 2 lawsuits over R-J copyrights lift total to 100 (8-19-2010)
- 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)
Operators of four more websites were hit Thursday with copyright infringement lawsuits alleging material from the Las Vegas Review-Journal was posted on the sites without authorization.
The suits bring to 107 the number of copyright infringement lawsuits filed since March over online postings of Review-Journal stories.
The suits are filed by Las Vegas company Righthaven LLC, which looks for online infringements of Review-Journal stories, obtains copyrights for those stories and then sues the alleged offenders.
The latest suits, like the others, were filed in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas. They each seek damages of $75,000 and forfeiture of the defendants’ website domain names to Righthaven.
Those sued Thursday were:
• Connie Hippen, who says on her Twitter account she’s a rancher in Wyoming and has a blog called http://deeprootsintoughtimes.blogspot.com.
Hippen is accused of posting a July 11 Review-Journal editorial about President Obama on her blogsite. Court records indicate the re-posted version of the editorial did not credit the Review-Journal for the information.
• Jeff Buckner, who apparently lives in the Cincinnati area and whom Righthaven says has a website called www.jeffbuckner.us/mrchipper. That site allegedly displayed without authorization a May 25 Review-Journal story about the Lady Luck property in downtown Las Vegas.
Court records show the only credit the Review-Journal received on Buckner’s website was the reporter’s tagline.
Buckner appears to have another website, www.mrchipper.com, covering his hobby of collecting casino chips and gaming tokens.
• An entity called MedicCom BBS, which Righthaven says is associated with a website called www.projectdisaster.com, which covers disasters, terrorism, emerging infectious diseases, disaster response and preparedness.
Also sued were three “hosts” of the website who work at the University of Toledo — Dr. Paul Rega, Kelly Burkholder-Allen and Churton Budd. They’re accused of posting without authorization a Review-Journal story about a technique used for cardiac arrest patients.
Rega, according to court records, is an assistant professor in public health and emergency medicine at the university.
Burkholder-Allen, according to the website, is an adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Public Health and Homeland Security in the School of Medicine at the university.
Budd, according to the website, is a clinical informatics systems analyst at the university.
Records indicate the Review-Journal story posted on the projectdisaster website fully credited the R-J for the information and included a link to the story on the R-J website.
• Linda Muller and Nathan Muller, whom Righthaven says are associated with the website www.wehategringos.com. They’re accused of posting on the site a July 8 Review-Journal story about Sen. Harry Reid not taking a stand on the Obama administration suing Arizona over that state’s immigration law.
Court records indicate the Review-Journal was credited for the story on the wehategringos website.
The website has a copyright notice indicating its operators believe the use of news stories is fair use.
“This site contains copyrighted material, the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of issues of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific and social significance and make every effort to include appropriate credit, hyperlinks and author/publication information. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law,” the website says.
Requests for comment on the lawsuits were placed with Hippen, Buckner, Rega and the Mullers.
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Vote the RJ out of southern Nevada.
We the people make of the choice of what businesses survive and which ones will have to close up shop.
We are boycotting the RJ, their publications and all who advertise inside the RJ.
Chunky says:
Someone in the legal community needs to go after Righthaven and Mr. Gibson for abuse of our system.
Chunky continues to boycott the RJ and hopes everyone else will too.
That's what Chunky thinks!
TheKash is joining the boycott.
Although it's hard to know who advertises in the RJ withoit reading the RJ.
You do know that by boycotting the LVRJ that you are also boycotting the Sun....right.
In a way you are putting Mr. Green's job in jeopardy.
Also, I don't think that Mr. Green or the Sun understands that an agressive strategy to protect copyright will also most likely increase the value and revenue of newspapers and therefore will increase the likelyhood that he will have a job and have a job at a certain pay level.
If more newspapers did this aggressive strategy then it would have a preventive effect. People would think twice on copying and pasting material.
Proper linking of the stories would occur.
More traffic would go to newspapers.
More ad revenue would be generated.
More money would be available to pay the salaries of news reporters.
On the other hand it is USA.
So if you want to shut down both the Sun and LVRJ then go for it.
So if Mr. Green or the Sun wants to write news stories that discourage the protection of copyright then go for it.
We all have the right to shoot ourselves in the foot or in the wallet.
P.S. People boycotted the Sun so much that it had to become an insert into the LVRJ.
Righthaven and Review-Journal have put a nail in every news papers coffin! I still say that today's news paper started to die when it hit the front door of the readers; it had a 10 hour life span. As soon as the story was posted on the news papers web site the story was dead.
That is when the last paying person paid to read anything in their new paper, they gave to story away to who ever wanted to read it for nothing, and at that point that's what the story is worth nothing!
I don't think that anybody should post the whole story, but when they do a cut and paste and do a link to the story they bring readers back to the newspapers.
The key to this whole law suit for copyrights is what value was the story, when the copyright infringements happened! 0
They gave the story away to ever reader when they posted it on-line they did not charge for anybody to read the story, so how can they claim damages?
Did you pay anything to read this story? "NO"
Why would a news paper post a story on-line? Could it be they need the readership for advertisers? One of these blogs can generate millions of hits; they should be paying the blog owner for everyone they send to their new paper to read anything else they might read!
Bad business plan, and not to smart of the lawyers, how can they sue for anything that is worth 0.
Sarge: Same old, same old. I don't think Mr. Green's job is in jeopardy as most people probably read the Sun online. Maybe Mr. Greenspun was prescient in moving inside the RJ and seeming to focus on the online component: USA Today is doing the same thing apparently, though it did drop about ten percent of its employees to do so. And, the Wall Street Journal has a very successful paid online service.
As to your statement, "If more newspapers did this aggressive strategy then it would have a preventive effect. People would think twice on copying and pasting material," well, a Gallup poll a few weeks ago said, "Americans continue to express near-record-low confidence in newspapers and television news -- with no more than 25% of Americans saying they have a "great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in either."
I don't think that newspapers investing in litigation as a revenue source rather than improving their product. And, yes, the RJ did "invest" in Righthaven.
Also, Sarge:
Proper linking of the stories would occur. (I understand that most of the defendants did have links)
More traffic would go to newspapers. (According to at least two responses, traffic did go from the poster's site to the RJ)
More ad revenue would be generated. (Maybe, but in this economy, you know ad sales are down for newspapers)
More money would be available to pay the salaries of news reporters. (Doubtful at the RJ, but that's just a guess.)
Sarge: I'm clearly wrong. The RJ is trendy and in line with others in the newspaper business in seeking new revenue sources. I just read "News, over the past several years, has continued to decline in its percentage contribution to most diversified companies. Given all the trends we know, it will continue to do so. Movies, cable, satellite, and even broadcasting all have challenges, structural and cyclical, but overall are all doing better than print and text revenues." First this: http://newsonomics.com/the-newsonomics-o...
And, then, from the Neiman Journalism Lab, this, http://www.niemanlab.org/2010/06/a-quest....
Unfortunately, Stephens and the RJ apparently don't have this kind of business imagination or creativity.
I may have said this before, but just in case, I do see a time when this site, as well as the RJ's will be by subscription and I'm fine with that. I'd pay for the Sun online, the RJ, probably not. Just so you know, I did pay for the New York Times "Premium" service a while back and I'm fully prepared to pay for that site once it goes that way.
SgtRock is at it again. Does he really think think that "deeprootsintoughtimes.blogspot.com" has so many readers that the RJ is being harmed by articles appearing there? Sarge must think we're stupid.
Let's see..."deeprootsintoughtimes.blogspot.com" has caused $75,000 worth of damges to the RJ. So that means the RJ lost $75,000 worth of profit, or about $750,000 - $1,000,000 in revenue. That's a lot of subscriptions and a lot of ad revenue. All from people who would have bought the RJ or patronized one of their advertisers but didn't because they were getting all the RJ content the ever wanted from "deeprootsintoughtimes.blogspot.com."
Man, that must be one popular web site. I wonder why I've never heard of it before?
SgtRock also
Rock (or Mitchell or Frederick or whichever lackey they assigned to the task) tells us the Sun was relegated to being an insert because it was unpopular, as though its unpopulaity was a result of its quality. Actually, the Sun's demise was a result of its being an afternoon newspaper. They have all but disappeared. If quality is what drove people to choose the RJ, the RJ would have all the Pulitzers.
Rock (in previous posts) has also said that lawsuits get settled because they have merit. What a laugh! Lawsuits get settled because the cost of settling is less than the cost of fighting. They're called nuisance suits, and the RJ has editorialized quite fervently against them in the past.
If Righthaven business model is to make money long term by enforcing copyrights, Its target selection and tactics could be improved. Even in these times of high technology, you still can't get blood from a stone. How much money can any of these people have? Are these cases worth clogging up the federal docket? Or even investing in expedited copyrights for the purpose of suing? What could the possible damages to Righthaven be? Are they more than the postage on a cease and desist letter? It would be interesting to see just what rights Righthaven received from the creators of the materials. In any event, it is difficult to imagine that months after a typical news article is printed, it retains any real value at all -- except as part of a newspaper archive -- which it might not be after its transfer away from the newspaper to Righthaven.
It is Righthhaven's choice to make a business decision, and to select how it wants to do business and whether it want to do business over the long term or only for the short term
If Righthaven's business model is to file a whole lot of lawsuits and make money through "costs of defense" settlements, then the business model may only work in the short term as the Courts can use their inherent powers to protect their integrity from what they perceive as abuse of litigation. Further, Righthaven's filings may become Exhibits 1 through 10,000 against them. But, again, that is Righthaven's choice, and it -- and counsel -- have to take any consequences without whining.
Yup, RJ is boycotted.
"I don't think Mr. Green's job is in jeopardy as most people probably read the Sun online. "
You have a complete lack of understanding of where revenue get generated for newspapers. Over 70% of it comes from print ads.
"I don't think that anybody should post the whole story, but when they do a cut and paste and do a link to the story they bring readers back to the newspapers."
Why would person click the link when they have a stolen version of the story before their eyes?
"The key to this whole law suit for copyrights is what value was the story, when the copyright infringements happened! 0"
The copyright law allows for statuory awards that are not based on the lost of economic value.
"Proper linking of the stories would occur. (I understand that most of the defendants did have links)"
Proper linking is not copying and paste all or significant part of the story and then providing a link. The link becomes meaningless if the reader has the story in front of their eyes.
"More traffic would go to newspapers. (According to at least two responses, traffic did go from the poster's site to the RJ)"
There is no mention of traffic actually moving to the LVRJ site. You are just assuming that.
If the reader has the story in front of they eyes there is no need for the to click the link to re-read the same thing.
Boycott RJ, and screw that ambulance chaser.
Go to RJ's website and search for "Righthaven" - zero hits. If it's such a great thing to stand up for copyright, why does RJ try to avoid the issue altogether ? Because they're scumbags, and they know it.
"Let's see..."deeprootsintoughtimes.blogspot.com" has caused $75,000 worth of damges to the RJ. So that means the RJ lost $75,000 worth of profit, or about $750,000 - $1,000,000 in revenue"
Under the copyright law, one can sue for a statuory award which is where the $75,000 comes from.
The reason for that part of the law is to prevent people from even thinking of stealing copyright material in the first place.
"Sun was relegated to being an insert because it was unpopular, as though its unpopulaity was a result of its quality. Actually, the Sun's demise was a result of its being an afternoon newspaper"
That is funny. You are saying that having quality drives customers away. Weird understanding of the world.
The Sun could have easily become a morning paper but they did not because people have boycotted the paper for years. Sun is mostly a koolaid lib paper.
Most people, even libs, don't care to read that.
Sarge: "You have a complete lack of understanding of where revenue get generated for newspapers. Over 70% of it comes from print ads." In fact, Sarge I have an understanding of that. According to Neiman, "Newspaper advertising revenue was still down across the board -- 17.9 percent at Gannett's publishing division, 20.5 percent at McClatchy, 16.4 percent at Lee, and 14.7 percent at New York Times Company. MediaGeneral doesn't break out advertising revenue but reported publishing revenue as down 13.8 percent. News Corporation reported 10.0 percent growth in newspaper revenue, including what it said was a 5 percent ad revenue gain at The Wall Street Journal's print edition." (http://www.niemanlab.org/2010/02/earning...)
"Why would person click the link when they have a stolen version of the story before their eyes?" My understanding is that readers do click on those links for any number of reasons, to see associated photos for one. While they may not read the story they read posted elsewhere, they still quite likely to look around the site, that's my guess.
"There is no mention of traffic actually moving to the LVRJ site." Sherm, I'm not going to do all your research for you. Why don't you have one of your hot "investigative" team do it for you. By the way, I'm surprised John L. Smith hasn't done anything on this.
JohnF: "Actually, the Sun's demise was a result of its being an afternoon newspaper." I was around when several fine ones went out business and it's still a challenge for me to understand why. It's kind of nice to come home and pick up an evening paper.
On the other hand, I have no doubt that paid online news is the future of newspapers. I don't know how the model will work for local papers, but I can't imagine that it wouldn't at some point. It's great for readers who will have the most up to date news, in theory anyway, and I'd think for reporters who might be able to write "longer."
I get the Wall Street Journal online and it's great to see morning stories updated with fine reporting and writing.
SgtRock is using a tactic typical of people of his ilk: putting words in other people's mouths (either that or he has no understanding of even the rudiments of logic). I did not say that quality in newspapers drives readers away, nor can that inference be logically drawn from anything I said. I defy him to demonstrate how that follows from anything I said.
SgtRock does, however, seem to have a fairly intimate understanding of the situation. Does SgtRock care to disclose whether he has any formal relationship with the RJ?
Mr. Burns: The Willimantic Chronicle (to which I subscribed and where, coincidentally, Vin Suprynowicz got his start) was an afternoon paper. They are, alas, a casualty of the television age. They arose because morning papers had to go to press before much of the day's events had taken place, so the afternoon paper - especially on the east coast - carried news the morning paper couldn't get, like the score of the Giants/Dodgers game or the closing figures from the San Francisco stock exchange. Once people could just sit and watch the television and get all that news a second newspaper became a luxury, one that many chose to do without. I miss having an afternoon paper, especially in this town where its availability meant I didn't have to put money in Sherman Frederick's pocket just to get the paper I really wanted.
I should use my pronouns more carefully. When I said "They are, alas..." I meant afternoon papers, not the Willimantic Chronicle. The Chronicle has been in continuous publication for over 130 years.
What has the Sun become the de-facto media scare pulpit for the RJ ??? The Sun is distributed by the RJ, and tries to pretend its a no bias newspaper, I just don't get it
The Sun can't compete toe-to-toe with the LVRJ in the morning because there are not enough koolaid drinking libs especially ones that want to read koolaid material.
Amen, TonyCrago.
" the Fair Use doctrine will probably make an excellent defense in that case."
Copying and pasting all or a significant portion of copyright material from one website to another website is not fair use by any definition of the word especially in the legal definition of the words.
"In the rest of the cases, if there is no real damage, then these guys will get $200 a pop."
There are statutory damanges that are not related to proveable damage. That is why they sue all of them for $75,000.
"Copyrights do matter."
Yes, have some ethics, especially college professors and grandmas.
My grandma did not steal neither should yours.
Murray- You say that blogging has only been around since the 90's which you consider to still be relatively new. I would have to disagree with 20 yrs being relative new. The Internet has been highly unregulated which has led to the great magnitude of copyright infringements. When theft occurs for 20 yrs without any repercussions it spirals out of control because people start believing that it is okay because they have been getting away with it.
So where do you draw the line? I agree with SgtRock in the uselessness of a takedown notice. I highly doubt it would be effective in limiting and deterring all of the copyright violators (present and future). Furthermore,the author of a work (whether print or picture) should not be responsible for having to pay the attorneys who locate and serve legal papers to copyright infringers. It is the offender who should be penalized, not the owner!!
Murray- You speak of acting in a civilized manner and suggesting that Righthaven in not acting in civilized way. This I find interesting because in my understanding, a civilized person would ask before taking something that doesn't belong to them. Of which, none of these infringers have done.
The bottom line is that you have to start somewhere to begin regulating the astronomical amount of Internet copyright infringements. I think it has gone on for far too long and Righthaven is now a means for authors to fight back. I would imagine that in the past it wasn't financially feasible for authors to find and pay a copyright attorney to go after infringers but now Righthaven has developed a financially suitable way for authors to do just that.
ps to Cognastics- I gave the example of business owners to illustrate my point that people who run or own a website have the responsibility to be informed of and follow the laws. It was not meant to be a parallel example of being a business owner for financial purposes. I was also going to use an example of driving on the roads... It is each individuals responsibility to learn the rules of the road and laws governing it before you start driving. And if you don't then you will be penalized accordingly.
"And if you don't then you will be penalized accordingly."
Accordingly would be about the value of stealing a candy bar that people thought were free. The punishment should fit the crime no? RH is taking advantage of a law that was NOT designed for this. RH are asking for 75k here and taking advantage of OUR legal system. Even poor people get to protest.
Chumping up legal fees to stick it to low income Americans all the while backed by a Billionaire entity standing on 'the law'. Doesn't matter to me what the court says, this is the lowest of the low. The public opinion on that is overwhelming and something these plaintiffs will never live down. Enjoy the spoils. It's not my place to sit in judgement. There are higher powers for that. God Bless.
It's not about law or CR protection no matter how much RH employees post here. It's about 3 things.
Greed, greed and greed.
It's good to see people like the eff getting involved for those in need. I believe some positive will result from this.
Archibald I definitely agree with you that some positive will result from this. What one considers positive however varies greatly.
All this becomes a moot point if people just follow some basic principles of ethics.
Don't copy and paste all or significant amounts of other people's work.
There would be zero lawsuits.
Is that too hard to understand?
I agree people should not copy. No argument here. I don't agree 75k is just punishment.
RH has stepped over the line of public decency and abuse of the law.
Is that to hard to understand?
I guess you guys got stuck with the friday night shift. Hope you get the day off tomorrow. How much do you get paid for 'public damage control'? Ah well. All in a days work.
Kimberly: I'm not going to spend much time responding to you, but a couple of decades is not new when it comes to the law. Brown v. Board of Education was 1954: There are still issues.
"The Internet has been highly unregulated which has led to the great magnitude of copyright infringements." And, what's the answer? Don't provide a fact, without a possible resolution that, as Aristotle might say, is for the greater good.
"a civilized person would ask before taking something that doesn't belong to them." Sure, that's true, but the Internet is generally viewed as free, open, with obvious exceptions. This is new, if you took the time to call some of the defendants, or read the responses to the litagation, you'd learn that these people didn't know they were doing something that was illegal. Sure, they say "Ignorance is no excuse," but I guarantee you that you'll see courts looking at history rather than law.
"I would imagine that in the past it wasn't financially feasible for authors to find and pay a copyright attorney to go after infringers but now Righthaven has developed a financially suitable way for authors to do just that." Get this straight: Newspapers should get revenues from selling news, not the litigation of their sources, many of which have been sued, and those suits that were reportedly dropped were done so for reasons of public perception.
"The bottom line is that you have to start somewhere to begin regulating the astronomical amount of Internet copyright infringements." Absolutely, but you don't start with lawsuits. I have no idea what lawyers you know or who you have dealt with, but every one of them who I've spoken with said that the strategy Righthaven has used is not in the best interest of law or the legal community, or, in fact, the cause.
"I agree with SgtRock in the uselessness of a takedown notice." So, what you're saying is that you agree with something that hasn't been tested? That sort of agreement without facts got us into Iraq.
I could go on, but it is pointless. There is no question that more than 100 people made a mistake. The real question is why this newspaper would not think like a real newspaper and consider the consequences to its business
And, just to wrap this up, remember, the RJ has not covered it's own suit. That shows a lot courage.
Rock/Sherm: You've become quite boring. If you're not an attorney, leave it alone. Or, if you're a student of history, look at the financial "success" of the RIAA suits.
The RJ isn't going out of business, I just can't imagine that. What I can imagine is that its ad revenues will take a hit at some point for all this.
Anyone who's posting here and supporting Righthaven, it is amazing to me that you have no sympathy for people who just didn't know. But maybe you are who really represents Las Vegas and Nevada, but I certainly hope not.
Perhaps someone could provide contacts where public bystanders and observers could express our objections to these opportunistic lawsuits.
Is there a proper email or physical address contact that the public could use, either by email or USmail, and voice our outrage?
Archibald, you might contact the EFF on that question. They may have an answer for you:
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/08/eff...
Thanks lisa. I know it doesn't matter but I was reading something where a person was considering to file bankruptcy. Not confirmed or anything. They said bankruptcy was the only 'out' from the carnage.
It's really great to not see mr rock here today. He hurts the eyes and the soul.