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Friday, July 23, 2010 | 2:05 a.m.
Sun archives
- 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)
Four more website operators have been sued for copyright infringement after Las Vegas Review-Journal stories were posted on their websites, allegedly without authorization.
Righthaven LLC, a Las Vegas company that obtains copyrights to R-J stories and then sues alleged copyright inringers, filed the suits this week in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas.
The latest defendants are:
• Armed Citizen and two officials there, David Burnett and Clayton Cramer. R-J stories involving citizens using guns to protect themselves allegedly were posted on the www.thearmedcitizen.com website.
Cramer, a software writer and historian in Horseshoe Bend, Idaho, near Boise, said Thursday that he created the nonprofit website in 2003 to document instances of firearms being used in self defense around the country and since then has posted portions of 4,700 news stories.
The Righthaven suit names seven R-J stories it says were posted to the Armed Citizen site since 2004.
Records show Righthaven obtained a copyright to one of those stories. The story was posted in its entirety on the Armed Citizen site, with the R-J credited for the story and receiving a link, records show.
That was a 33-paragraph story from May 17 about the slaying of Las Vegas store clerk William Burhoe, who before dying managed to shoot and kill his robber.
Cramer said this was the first instance of a news organization objecting to such a posting at thearmedcitizen.com and that it was “astonishing” that Righthaven would file suit without it or the R-J first asking that the stories at issue be taken off the site.
He said Righthaven’s $75,000 damage claim was ridiculous given that the stories at issue are still available on the R-J website for free, meaning, he said, that any damages that have been sustained couldn’t amount to more than a few hundred dollars.
“I’m incensed. If these attorneys feel any jury in Nevada will go along with this, they are delusional,” Cramer said, adding he’s contacting attorneys and will vigorously contest the allegations.
• Free Speech Systems LLC and radio talk show host Alex Jones in Austin, Texas, who have websites called www.prisonplanet.com and www.infowars.com. Court records indicate a substantial portion of an R-J column was posted on these sites, with a link to the entire column; while message board users of the sites posted additional entire R-J stories with links. The column and stories were credited to the R-J, records show.
“This claim is totally without merit and appears to be purely predatory and I’m weighing all options with counsel including a possible counterclaim, not just to protect myself from being squeezed but also the other sites that have been sued,” said Jones, who said his national talk show is heard on 60 stations around the country.
Jones describes himself as a defender of the Bill of Rights, property rights and the nation’s borders, and as a leader in the “9/11 Truth Movement.”
• Assured Lender Services Inc. in Tustin, Calif., and Tina Suihkonen. The defendants are accused of posting R-J material on the website assuredlenderservices.wordpress.com.
• The District of Columbia nonprofit Americans for Democratic Action and an official there, Don Kusler, director of the ADA group Working Families Win. R-J material allegedly was posted on the Working Families Win website.
Messages for comment were left with the other two new defendants.
The latest suits bring to at least 79 the number of Righthaven lawsuits filed since March.
Mr. Gibson may you reap all the rewards of the karma you spread. And I mean it, really.
I guess if you can't sell advertising, you start a "cottage industry" of shaking people down for cash.
Suing folks for "copyright infringement" might be lucrative, but it sure is a sad, sad commentary on the folks that run the RJ.
gmag again showing he writes and demostrates that he absolutely knows nothing what he is writing about.
Since you seem to know it all so please do tell us how much money LVRJ has received from the lawsuits.
This is a Scam, that is to rip off the readers of the R-J
Since the Sun broke the story I have told ever body I know about it, and told them to never buy a paper for the R-J again.
If you have somebody the post a link to a story that a new paper printed, the are sending readers to the news paper, there for adding to the reader base. News papers are losing readers everyday, and should thank anybody that is sending readers to their papers. I would never post the story that anybody wrote, I would write a lead-in to the story and post a link, after all the stories do have copy-rights. What Righthaven LLC is doing is buying the rights to the stories after they find someone who they can sue, how sad is that?
Nobody should roll over on this, and if anybody finds the R-J using a story that someone else has written they should sue big time!
The part of all of this that I can not figure out is how does Righthaven LLC get the copyright after the website ran the link and then sue? They did not own the copyright before the link ran.
Sorry, I'm a little late to this party. Is Steven A. Gibson an attorney retained by the R-J to file these lawsuits or is this his own little cottage industry?
Steve Green, are you in their back pocket too? And Samb, I am there with you. Just boycott the RJ.
sgtrock!
Rearing his ugly head again... how's your brother's campaign going??? He's a CHAMP, rock, just a CHAMP!!!
So, James F. Nance, Jr., tell us lowly peons;
If they aren't GETTING ANY DOUGH... why would they be "outsourcing" this stuff to RIGHTHAVEN, LLC...
"Righthaven LLC, a Las Vegas company that obtains copyrights to R-J stories and then sues alleged copyright inringers, filed the suits this week in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas."
So, "OH WISE-(ass)ONE"...
WALK US THROUGH IT... and go SLOW for me as is your habit.
And one more question, James F. Nance, Jr....
DO YOU WORK FOR THE RJ???
It must be tough, rock. really, really tough.
Harry is gonna clobber Angle, your boy Gibbons is leaving in disgrace, Ensign is handicapping the state by his mere presence in the U.S. Senate, and will probably end up INDICTED;
How's all that hate working out for you, Rock???
Chunky says:
Looks like greed, smells like greed.
That's what Chunky thinks!
I agree..Looks dumb, smells dumb.
Who would name themselves Chunky?
Keep in mind that the R-J grubstaked Righthaven and has said that this will be a service offered for profit to other copyright owners. They need to build some kind of success record in order to get other clients. The R-J is getting money back from this as stakeholders in Righthaven.
I, too, would like to know the time line of when alleged offending stories were posted and when Righthaven obtained the copyrights involved.
It could be that Righthaven searches the Web and when it finds a potential violation it then gets the copyright from the R-J and sues. A person more cynical than me would suspect that someone could intentionally post a story in a comment and then tip off Righthaven.
When a News story goes over the wire it gets re-printed all over.
Someone explain to me since when did news stories in a paper become copyrighted?
Especially when they are put on the internet!
I say people of Las Vegas spend your quarters on another paper and delete their url from your computer.
LVRJ is a crappy paper with a crappy owner!
BOFTX, you are on the right track with your thinking here. One instance that I am aware of is the article was posted (not in full) and then several weeks later taken off the site (during site maintenance) and later the copyright was taken out by Righthaven and then the owner of the site was sued. It does seem like they are copyrighting after the story is linked, not before.
Just remember folks, the music industry did the same thing and they spent $64M to recover $1.4M. A loss of over $60M.
Who says lawyers are scumbags?
It's interesting that in the cases where the websites are owned by a corporation or LLC, the lawyers are also naming the owners personally in the suits. One of the reasons businesses incorporate is to protect their personal assets from frivolous lawsuits just like this. To my way of thinking, this is another tactic the lawyers are using to intimidate the website owners into settling before going to court.
In court, they would have to prove that the principals were somehow acting on their own, and not in the interest of the corporation, or at the direction of the management of the corporation, when they published the articles, in order to 'pierce the corporate veil', and go after the personal assets of the owners. I think this is very unlikely, but, again, they may be calculating that just the threat of this will cause the defendants to cough up.
One unfortunate aspect of 'settling' out of court, is that there is usually an agreement that the parties don't disclose details of the settlement. So unless some of these suits actually go to court, we may never know what happens.
I hope and pray someone fights this in court and doesn't settle. There is a lot more at stake here than just ad revenue dollars. The fact there were no warnings or take down notices sent to these people, nor were there ways set up by LVRJ to "protect" their articles (i.e. not being able to copy, etc.) but, instead, actual options to get them linked on FB, Digg, Twitter, etc. just screams "set up" to me.
This is a moot issue. The RJ is soon to join the ranks of the bankrupt companies, anyway. People have sopped buying thier newspapers in droves because of the high prices and the sharply reduced content.
Well, but it's NOT a moot issue, because now scumsucking bottomfeeding lawyer is charging full speed ahead, regardless of R-J's readership issues.
This is so wrong, and I can't see a jury possibly indicting these people. What's so shocking is that the copyrighted website has a "print" button.. which implies that they are requesting that people distribute their articles. As long as people are providing sources, there is absolutely no reason for a lawsuit without even sending a request first.
"It could be that Righthaven searches the Web and when it finds a potential violation it then gets the copyright from the R-J and sues."
Yes, that's exactly the case. They wait until an article is posted, then register the copyright, and file suit.
"I hope and pray someone fights this in court and doesn't settle."
The difficulty here is that defending yourself from such a civil suit costs at least $10,000. If these cases when to trial, the likely judgment would be in the $750-$1500 range--but then you have to pay your attorneys, but you also have to pay Righthaven's attorneys. If all the defendants banded together to pay an attorney to fight these suits, it would be probably more cost-effective, since there is a lot in common in these cases: lack of personal jurisdiction, for example.
E-mails to armed citizens and hopefully they each tell armed citizens and so on, going after THE ARMED CITIZEN is not a good move There are millions of us and we will boycott all that you are connected too and the people who place adds in your newspapers. Personally I'd think twice then drop the lawsuit.
Tennessee
The Daily Herald Columbia, TN
The Advertiser News Of Spring Hill And Thompson's Station
Franklin Life
Brentwood Life
Texas
Anna-Melissa Tribune Anna TX
Herald Democrat Sherman, TX
Grayson County Shopper
Lake Texoma Life Van Alstyne, TX
Prosper Press Prosper, TX
Van Alstyne Leader Van Alstyne TX
Washington
The Daily World Aberdeen, WA
The North Coast News
The South Beach Bulletin
East County News
The Montesano Vidette Montesano WA
part two
LIST OF PAPERS TO BOYCOTT PART ONE
Booneville Democrat Booneville AR
Cabot Star-Herald Cabot, AR
Cabot Weekly
Carlisle Independent Carlisle AR
Charleston Express Charleston AR
Fayetteville Free Weekly Fayetteville AR
Greenwood Democrat Greenwood AR
Hot Springs Village Voice Hot Springs Village AR
Jacksonville Patriot Jacksonville, AR Lonoke Democrat Lonoke, AR
Morning News of Northwest Arkansas Springdale AR
Paris Express Paris AR
Pine Bluff Commercial Pine Bluff AR
The Market Place
The White Hall Progress
Press Argus Courier Van Buren AR
Alma Journal
Sherwood Voice Sherwood AR
Southwest Times Record ort Smith AR
The Maumelle Monitor Maumelle AR
The Times North Little Rock AR
Van Buren County Democrat Clinton AR
Washington County Newspapers
The Lincoln Leader
The Prairie Grove Enterprise
The Farmington Post
Hawaii
808 Classifieds Hilo HI
Big Island Weekly Hilo HI
Hawaii Tribune-Herald Hilo HI
North Hawaii News Waimea HI
West Hawaii Today Kailua-Kona HI
North Hawaii News
Big Island HI
Westside Weekly
Missouri
McDonald County Newspapers
The Anderson Graphic The Goodman News-Dispach
The McDonald County News-Gazette
The McDonald County Press
The Southwest City Republic
El Tiempo
Nevada
Ely Times Ely NV
Eureka Sentinel Eureka NV
Las Vegas Review-Journal Las Vegas NV
View Neighborhood Newspapers
El Tiempo
Las Vegas CityLife
Las Vegas Business Press
Rebel Nation
New Homes Guide
Luxury Las Vegas
Southern Nevada Home And Garden Magazine
Nifty Nickel
Neighborhood Shopper
Jobs Today Weekly
Pahrump Valley Times Pahrump NV
Tonopah Times-Bonanza Tonopah NV
North Carolina
Courier-Tribune Asheboro NC
Oklahoma
Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise Bartlesville OK
Pawhuska Journal Capital Pawhuska OK