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February 23, 2012

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Drudge Report owner sued by Righthaven

By (contact)

Thursday, Dec. 9, 2010 | 10:06 a.m.

Las Vegas copyright enforcement company Righthaven LLC on Wednesday filed its second copyright infringement lawsuit over Denver Post material, this time suing a big target: Drudge Report operator Matt Drudge.

The suit, filed in U.S. District Court for Nevada, charges a Nov. 18 Denver Post "illustration" called "Transportation Security Administration agents perform enhanced pat-downs" was posted without authorization the same day on the Drudge Report website as well as the drudgereportarchives.com site.

A court exhibit, however, indicates the illustration is actually a Denver Post photograph of a TSA officer patting down a passenger at Denver International Airport. Righthaven usually sues over unauthorized online postings of news stories, columns and editorials. Lately it has sued over alleged infringements involving graphics and, now, a photograph.

"Mr. Drudge has willfully engaged in the copyright infringement of the work," Wednesday's lawsuit charges.

A message for comment was left with Drudge, who was sued personally, as well as codefendant drudgereportarchives.com.

Righthaven since March has now filed at least 181 copyright infringement lawsuits against website operators and bloggers. It usually sues over Las Vegas Review-Journal material. An affiliate of Stephens Media LLC, owner of the Review-Journal, is an investor in Righthaven. Last week, Righthaven started suing over Denver Post material.

Righthaven finds online infringements, obtains copyrights to the infringed material and then sues the alleged infringers on a retroactive basis. Righthaven and Stephens Media have said the lawsuits are necessary to protect the newspaper industry's copyrights, but critics call the no-warning lawsuits frivolous and part of a settlement shakedown campaign.

A court exhibit indicates Righthaven on Wednesday applied with the U.S. Copyright Office to register its rights in the Denver Post photograph of the TSA pat-down and that it obtained rights to the photo from Denver Post owner Media News Group Inc., which also spells its name MediaNews Group.

As for the drudgereportarchives.com site, it says: "Matt Drudge does not own, operate or maintain this archive site. He is not responsible for it in any way."

And Righthaven says in its lawsuit "DrudgeReportArchives is, and has been at all times relevant to this lawsuit, an entity of unknown origin and nature."

Nevertheless, Righthaven charged in the lawsuit: "At all times relevant to this lawsuit, Mr. Drudge has been and is a direct financial beneficiary of the Drudge Archives website."

"DrudgeReportArchives has displayed and/or archived, and continues to display and/or archive ... all of the electronic content and embedded hyperlinks originally posted and/or displayed by Mr. Drudge on the Drudge Report website," Righthaven's suit charges. "At all times relevant to this lawsuit, Mr. Drudge has permitted and permits the electronic content (including ... all embedded hyperlinks and interactive features) ultimately posted and/or displayed on the Drudge Archives website."

As in most of its recent lawsuits, Righthaven seeks in Wednesday's lawsuit damages of $150,000 as well as forfeiture to Righthaven of the drudgereport.com and drudgereportarchives.com website domain names.

Discussion: 20 comments so far…

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  1. By Chandler_L (Chandler LeVrIcH)
    Dec. 9, 2010
    10:22 a.m.
    Flag

    This has to be out of the Book of Revelation. It couldn't happen to a nicer group of tail eating snakes.

  2. By gmag39
    Dec. 9, 2010
    10:51 a.m.
    Flag

    Ha ha ha!
    Divine!!!
    Hey, Chandler, ain't that a HOOT?
    Boy, I bet Matty was thrilled with the news; I'm pretty sure that links TO the RJ from the Grudge Report have been VERY beneficial to the RJ's site traffic... talk about BITING THE HAND THAT FEEDS YOU...
    Ha ha ha!!!

  3. By murrayburns
    Dec. 9, 2010
    11:23 a.m.
    Flag

    I'm not a Drudge fan, but I sure hope this ends sometime soon. The RJ's making a fool of itself and increasingly embittering those who read it and advertising in it. It's management must know there's a more civil way to handle these transgressions and if it doesn't, well, there maybe is no answer.

    Beyond that, no has yet to cite valid, or even invalid statistics that this sort reposting of articles detracts in anyway from revenue or site visits. I read somewhere that one defendant who tracks pageviews had fewer than a dozen or so people read an RJ story posted on his site over a five month period. For that he's got either settle or pony up a ton of money?

    And, I agree gmag, Druge's site probably drove visitors to the RJ site.

    It all seems to me like a last gasp effort to bring money in to a newspaper that's maybe failing. But who knows? It's not very open with the public about this and the only story it did on these actions was minimal at best.

    I'm beginning to agree with those who are "boycotting" the RJ site. Is there anything really there that we can't get on the Sun site, or other news venues?

  4. By askmrmark (Mark Anthony)
    Dec. 9, 2010
    11:47 a.m.
    Flag

    Ok, if this is not a shake down operation, I don't know what is... They apply for the copyright to the photo on the same day the file the lawsuit.

  5. By vegas_tom
    Dec. 9, 2010
    11:56 a.m.
    Flag

    is it just me that sees the irony in this?

    http://www.lvrj.com/blogs/sherm/SNL_on_T...

    (click on the youtube video)

  6. By gingerlee (Ginger McGraw)
    Dec. 9, 2010
    12:22 p.m.
    Flag

    vegs-tom, you think that SNL should sue?

  7. By vegas_tom
    Dec. 9, 2010
    12:38 p.m.
    Flag

    I'm not sure that an action is necessary --- but, to me at least, Sherm embedding known pirated material is deliciously ironic. I mean I don't think he could say he didn't know it was protected material. But who knows in Sherm's world --- where things are decidedly different.

  8. By murrayburns
    Dec. 9, 2010
    12:53 p.m.
    Flag

    vegas_tom: I don't think Sherm has a world. This entire action on which he embarked, arguably, was, well, stupid and doesn't seem, at this point, cost effective. His rants against Reid were beyond just "over the top," they seemed irrational and in many cases untruthful. It is interesting to me that we haven't seen a blog or column from him in the paper since last week.

    All of that said, I doubt seriously if we'll see any real change in the RJ. My hope is that some larger, more responsible media company sees future value in it and Las Vegas and comes in with a clean sweep.

    Thanks Mr. Greenspun for maintaining a fine, responsibile news organization and venue.

  9. By vegas_tom
    Dec. 9, 2010
    1:17 p.m.
    Flag

    murrayburns wrote: "It is interesting to me that we haven't seen a blog or column from him in the paper since last week."

    perhaps there are new pollution laws we haven't heard about yet? <grin>

    murrayburns wrote: "All of that said, I doubt seriously if we'll see any real change in the RJ."

    my RJ sources have told me that Brown spiked two stories just last week. I doubt that there will be significant change, but any change could not hurt.

    murrayburns wrote: "Thanks Mr. Greenspun for maintaining a fine, responsible news organization and venue."

    hear hear.

  10. By vegaslee
    Dec. 9, 2010
    2:17 p.m.
    Flag

    Will be interesting to see if Drudge stops linking to RJ stories over this.

    If he does, there goes a few MILLION viewers from the RJ site each month. Since they don't tell the truth about their web site traffic anyway I doubt they will let their advertisers know about the traffic loss.

  11. By murrayburns
    Dec. 9, 2010
    3:06 p.m.
    Flag

    Sarge - why are you so passionate about this?

  12. By vegas_tom
    Dec. 9, 2010
    3:52 p.m.
    Flag

    > how does stealing a photograph from the LVRJ drive traffic to the LVRJ? <

    wow -- are you serious?

    if you are: how this will work is that Drudge won't link to the RJ / Stephens media if hell were to freeze over. I wouldn't care if the RJ got an exclusive story of Obama beating Harry Reid to death in front of the Aria. The RJ / Stephens won't get a link.

    As much as it bothers me to say Drudge drives traffic --- and he's linked to several stories on the RJ, just in the past month (ask your boy Sherm what happens when Drudge links to one of his stories).

    Believe me when I tell you this was a very, very shortsighted move --- and the loss in traffic will be noticed.

    man --- I can't believe this has to be explained to you; but maybe not. you don't seem to be up on a good many things in the world.

  13. By vegas_tom
    Dec. 9, 2010
    4:32 p.m.
    Flag

    sort of a non sequitur, but given that drudge is the subject....

    http://tinyurl.com/38jjda3

  14. By ksand99 (Kevin Sandoval)
    Dec. 9, 2010
    8:15 p.m.
    Flag

    "Righthaven is saying that the laws says that if one copies and pastes all or a significant part of the story even though they link and cite then that is copyright infringement."

    That's not true. Righthaven just had a case tossed out of court for being frivolous. Right now, Righthaven is claiming they shouldn't have to pay legal fees to the website they victimized with their phony lawsuit.

    In that case, 4 paragraphs out of a 34-paragraph story were posted with proper attribution and a link back to the story on the R-J's site.

    Even a judge laughed that case out of court, yet Righthaven is fighting back, claiming they shouldn't have to pay legal fees for their frivolous lawsuit.

    Being an apologist for Righthaven is one thing, but don't lie about their intentions or their arguments. They argued, IN COURT, that 4 paragraphs, a link back to the source material and attribution was tantamount to $75,000 in damages!

    These frivolous lawsuits are a waste of the court's time. It amazes me that those people whining about tort reform are willing to excuse and justify this similar abuse of the legal system.

  15. By ChunkyFlyRight
    Dec. 9, 2010
    9:27 p.m.
    Flag

    Chunky says:

    Thanks to Mr. FTW for the tip to block their sites!

    4chan and Anonymous should launch a legion of robot love on Righthaven, Stephens and their affiliates.

    That's what Chunky thinks!

  16. By ksand99 (Kevin Sandoval)
    Dec. 9, 2010
    10:21 p.m.
    Flag

    "The judge did not say the case was frivolous. He just said that it was fair use and the reason he stated it was fair use was fairly complex and he also decided facts without due process of which if Righthaven appealed could have probably overturn his ruling fairly easily just for that alone. But they did not have to because they already reached a cash settlement with the infringer."

    This is patently false. In the case against DemocraticUnderground, the case was thrown out of court. The charges were dismissed... a clear indicator of Righthaven abusing the legal process and failing to make their case.

    4 paragraphs of a 34-paragraph story, with attribution and a source link! Yet you defend Righthaven!

    Also, another judge threw out the Righthaven case against Michael Nelson, again because Righthaven failed to make their case.

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/10/26/...

    Righthaven's claim of $75,000 comes from copyright law, Sgt James F Nance Jr Rock, maybe you didn't know? So how do you explain their petty, childish demands for ownership of the domains?

    That's TWO lawsuits that have been tossed out of court because of Righthaven's incomptence. You defend a lawyer whose taking clear cases of fair use to court in order to make a quick buck for Stephens Media.

    You should be ashamed that the legal system is being abused in this manner and that you're supporting the practice.

  17. By ksand99 (Kevin Sandoval)
    Dec. 9, 2010
    11:39 p.m.
    Flag

    "Thank God you figured out where the $75,000 comes from. It doesn't come from actual qualitative [sic] "damages" as you stated in your previous post."

    Yes, those are the quantitative damages called for in copyright law. Further, you don't answer the question about Righthaven's petty, childish demands for control of the domain names, either. Hmmmmm...

    "In the Michael Nelson case, Righthaven would have probably gotten that dismissal overturned on appeal but they did not need to do that because the case was already settled with cash going to Righthaven."

    Ah yes, the good old James F Nance Jr crystal ball argument. Tell us, Zelda, why didn't your crystal ball predict Righthaven begging to dismiss their own lawsuit against DU?

    You have NO EVIDENCE any case would be overturned on appeal.

    "In the Michael Nelson case, Righthaven would have probably gotten that dismissal overturned on appeal but they did not need to do that because the case was already settled with cash going to Righthaven."

    The settlement was confidential. AGAIN, you post alleged facts without knowing all the details. Tell us, Zelda, how much did he pay?

    As usual, someone would have to be as dumb as a rock to believe the pathetic arguments from Righthaven's cheerleaders.

  18. By murrayburns
    Dec. 10, 2010
    6:09 a.m.
    Flag

    Interesting that the RJ finally ran a full story on the litigation today, oddly, on the Drudge matter. Maybe it's new editor is making changes.

  19. By SunJon (Jon Becker)
    Dec. 15, 2010
    4:53 a.m.
    Flag

    RightHaven should pay for all the Court Costs up front because the Court is being used as a Wholly Owned Subsidiary for pure personal profit.

    They are also clogging up a Court System that is already clogged and creating lengthy litigation periods and expenses for the public. These are the Conservatives tell us they "want for freedom" and for what? By denying freedom to others by clogging up the Courts? I don't hear the Tea Party complaining about RightHaven.

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