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Published Thursday, June 10, 2010 | 12:34 p.m.
Updated Thursday, June 10, 2010 | 5:43 p.m.
Related Document (.pdf)
Sun Coverage
- 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)
Three more website operators are being sued for copyright infringement after allegedly posting Las Vegas Review-Journal stories on their Internet sites without permission.
An earlier defendant, in the meantime, has struck back, calling the lawsuits a waste of judicial resources.
Suits filed last week and this week named as defendants:
--Domains By Proxy Inc., which allegedly is the registrant and contact for the website www.crimenews2000.com. That website says it's an advocate for crime victims and justice nationwide. It allegedly published material from the R-J, the Las Vegas Sun and other local news organizations about the slayings this year in Southern Nevada of Hooters waitress Prisma Contreras and homeowner Julio Romero.
--Brian Lojeck, whom Righthaven says runs the website www.whatbrianthinksaboutlasvegas.com. That site allegedly posted an R-J column involving politician Sarah Palin.
--Commerce CRG Utah LLC, Commerce Consolidated LLC and Rodney Gibson. Righthaven says their commercial real estate website www.comre.com posted an R-J story about retail sales trends in Nevada. The website says Commerce Real Estate Solutions has offices in Las Vegas, Utah and Washington state and is part of the Cushman & Wakefield Alliance. The COMRE blog includes stories by the Las Vegas Sun, the Deseret News in Salt Lake City, Yahoo.com and other sources.
In response to the lawsuit, Bill Miller, spokesman for the crimenews2000 website, said: "First I've heard of the suit, and a simple notice would have been all that was required for me to remove their content. All stories excerpted on this site clearly identify the originating newspaper, and link back both to the original article (most of them twice) and the media outlet's main page.
"All material from the Review-Journal has been removed from my website. Why work for a living when you can sue?'' the spokesman said.
And Gibson, of Commerce Real Estate Solutions, on Thursday called the lawsuit situation unfortunate.
"We have been pro-active in contacting the Review-Journal with research and trends reflecting the Las Vegas market. We have also participated in interviews with Review-Journal reporters, whom we respect and value as they cover a very complex industry -- commercial real estate," Gibson said in a statement. "Nearly all articles posted on our company blog, Commerce Communiqué, contain a brief about the article with a link to the full story, which takes the reader to the Review-Journal website. We posted these news items because we believed the public and our customers would benefit by reading credible stories by credible news outlets. We wanted to help direct them to the Las Vegas Review-Journal site.
"In the past, we did post several complete articles, giving full credit to the publication and author. It was always our goal to educate investors and support the Review-Journal as a responsible, balanced news outlet. As of June 10, we have removed all Las Vegas Review-Journal news briefs and links from our company blog. We find this unfortunate, because we value the relationship we have with the newsroom staff. We want our clients to read the latest stories written about market conditions in Las Vegas. We want to help fuel the economic comeback," Gibson said.
A request for comment was left for the third new defendant.
The new cases bring to 37 the number of copyright infringement lawsuits filed since March in Las Vegas federal court by Righthaven LLC, which obtains copyrights to R-J stories and then sues alleged infringers and typically demands $75,000 in damages.
In the previous cases, many of the defendants said that until they were sued, they had no idea there was a concern about them posting R-J stories.
One of the earlier defendants has filed a response in court saying the lawsuit is an abuse of the judicial process and a waste of time, effort and money since the potential damages are less than $86.
John (Jack) D. Wooden, of Columbus, Ind., who runs the madjacksports.com website, was sued by Righthaven on May 13 because R-J stories involving UNLV sports and hunting and fishing were posted on the madjacksports site.
In his June 2 response focusing on a copyright obtained by Righthaven for an R-J UNLV basketball story, Wooden said a third party reader of the website using the name "illuminati" posted text from the story on a madjack message board.
"The text from the newspaper article was removed from the web page promptly upon receipt of plaintiff's complaint, and that text no longer appears on the website. Receipt of plaintiff's complaint in this action was the first time defendant or his company had ever been notified of any complaint or issue regarding the newspaper article," Wooden said in his filing.
The web page at issue was visited just 29 times, so the potential damages total just $85.55, since the R-J sells the article on its website archive for $2.95, Wooden said.
"If plaintiff or anyone else discovers allegedly infringing material on the website, a simple phone call or e-mail is all that will be required to resolve the matter," Wooden wrote.
"This lawsuit was entirely unnecessary and is an abuse of this court's resources and power. But more importantly, this is not the only such case pending before this court. Plaintiff is a newly-formed corporate shell designed solely for plaintiff's counsel to use as a litigation machine to extort outrageous multi-thousand dollar settlements from far-flung 'innocent infringers' like defendant where actual damages, if any, are in the $3 to $100 range and could be cured with a phone call or an email," Wooden's filing said.
"Plaintiff's business model is precisely the type of abusive, needlessly litigious behavior that gives lawyers a bad name, and it should be stopped, here and now," Wooden wrote. "This court should put an end to this rapidly-escalating waste of resources and send a clear signal to plaintiff by awarding defendant his costs and attorney fees."
Righthaven hasn't responded to Wooden's allegations it's a "litigation machine."
In a May 28 blog post, Review-Journal Publisher Sherman Frederick explained that the R-J and its owner, Stephens Media, had decided to act against the theft of copyrighted material.
"When it comes to copyrighted material — news that my company spends money to gather and constitutes the essence of what we are as a business — some people think they can not only look at it, but also steal it. And they do,’’ Frederick wrote.
"We grubstaked and contracted with a company called Righthaven. It’s a local technology company whose only job is to protect copyrighted content. It is our primary hope that Righthaven will stop people from stealing our stuff. It is our secondary hope, if Righthaven shows continued success, that it will find other clients looking for a solution to the theft of copyrighted material," Frederick wrote.
I'm done with the RJ.
I will now go out of my way not to support them.
And I hope Wooden gets traction and collapses the embezzlement scheme by Righthaven.
"It is our secondary hope, if Righthaven shows continued success, that it will find other clients looking for a solution to the theft of copyrighted material," Frederick wrote."
Ah, so there's the ultimate intent. He's lying about the so called "secondary hope". It's the primary hope for sure.
The RJ/Stephens Media is "test marketing" this with the intent of operating a side business. They want to sell this "service" to other publication$ And thereby, spread the wealth!!...$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$.
This is responsible for Nevada becoming known as an unfriendly to business state. A bully sue-happy company.
Someone crippled-up by medical provider, an unsafe construction site or a big company cause the RJ to belch out talk of "law suit abuse" and the "lawsuit lottery."
Of course casino owners, Republicans, rich guys and right wing news elements can sue all they want, it's just those pesky small fry: consumers, injured employees and patients that are the problem.
Stop the madness. People out there need a stern warning and for awareness to be shed.
Wouldn't a warning be more productive as they let the websites know of their wrong doing and that they can still link to the article but not post it entirely? Views are then directed right to the correct source. Problems solved.
Instead they sue right away and all of these blogs are simply not reporting anything LVRJ has to offer anymore. You now have an instant loss in views.
How is this measure productive in the long run for LVRJ?
I'm telling you. I wonder if the advertisers know about this measure of getting rich quick and capitalizing as the ship is sinking.
It's like their saying, " We don't care about views or linkage anymore. Just give us some money"
Why doesn't the RJ send a DMCA takedown first? They can get the offending material removed first before a lawsuit is filed.
A DMCA takedown request would serve the purpose of removing the copyrighted content and educate the individuals posting the content that you cant post full stories - just fair use excerpts and your own commentary.
Oh wait, their goal isn't to stop copyright infringement, its to beat up on the little bloggers around the country and take their lunch money. Nothing more than a bully.
And BTW Steve, "Domains By Proxy Inc" is a proxy agent to register domains with so the actual owner doesn't show up in the WHOIS records of a domain. I have several domains where "Domains By Proxy Inc" shows up as the owner even though I'm the real owner.
Ridicule and parody are excluded from these types of lawsuits. Which is funny in itself because the LV Tea Bagger has become a parody of itself.
I am reinforced that my decision to cease my subscription was an appropriate one.
Sherman Frederick refers to "news that my company spends money to gather..."
What news is that? The front section of the RJ is nearly all wire-service copy. The front section typically has only 1 or 2 stories by RJ reporters.
The business section is "edited with a shovel", because many of the stories are rewrites of corporate press releases.
And the editorial page is congenial to Nevada friends of Jim Gibbons. Both of them. The opinion page is often outsourced to the right-wing NPRI, the right-wing Heritage Foundation, the ring-wing Hoover Institute, etc. etc.
Wow, seems like the RJ is going downhill faster then I had realized. I am so glad I chose not to renew my subscription. Seems they are just out to make money by suing the little guy instead of just sending them a notice to stop...Greed and Reid come to mind..
I can't believe that the RJ, in the sad economic state that it is in, is wasting time, money, and resources on such a thing. I'm willing to bet that more people were viewing the RJ through outside links than were actually logging into the RJ site. That sounds like an in-house problem that should embarrass them. They need to come up with a better plan to drive up traffic than frivolous lawsuits that they have no shot at winning. It will be a sad day when the RJ closes up shop and they can't blame www.whatbrianthinksaboutlasvegas.com. I am actually guessing that www.crimenews2000.com will be around longer than LVRJ.com.
Advertisers in the RJ should not renew if they're in such financial trouble they need to try to collect millions this way.
I hereby copyright all of the comments I have made or will make on this newspaper website's discussion area. They are, after all, pure gold.
Don't any of you even think about quoting me or linking to one of my comments or I'll sue your pants off.
-- Best regards, Sherm.
As a forum member of a nonprofit orginization that got slammed with one of these lawsuits because one of the people on our website forum posted an article from the RJ I think this is absurd. Where does this time/money waisting litigation end. On their website they provide links to Facebook, Twitter, etc. so what is the difference? Liberal A.. Holes
The RJ and the Sun are now deleted from my Favorites folder. RIP
I NEVER read the R-J anymore. That paper is awful. They are souless shills for the conservative fringe with bad journalism to boot.
"On their website they provide links to Facebook, Twitter, etc. so what is the difference?"
The difference is that, since it is their copyright, they're the ones who get to choose on which terms it gets promoted. If they don't want you posting full-text copies on their website than thats the rights given to them by Congress under the Copyright Acts that have passed over the years.
The lawsuit and settlement is rather heavy handed - a phone call, email or even a DMCA takedown notice served to the ISP of the hosted content would be sufficient to get the material removed in 99% of all cases. However that requires time and a lawyer drafting the takedown letter - and has no income. Filing lawsuits and getting $1500-2500 in settlement cash per suit does have income. If they can do 10/mo and get $2000 ea, or $1500 after filing fees and such, that's $15,000/mo in income for not a lot of time spent.
I don't see this as a political thing ie. Republican or Democrat I see this as the dieing off of the news print the RJ is a gray lady going down just like other news papers of yesteryear,
The RJ has a opportunity to become one of the leading digital news reporting media sources and they choose to engage in uncongenial business practices.
unconscionable I ment to say.
Cancelling July trip to Vegas, going to Scottsdale instead. If Vegas is this hard up for money, I'm concerned that we may get caught up in the money grabbing frenzy too. I believe this as just a sample of the hard times out there, where all's fair to grab a buck anywhere you can get it.
yodiracer, In regards to the forum poster, who is not to say that LVRJ has random people that they hire sign up to all these various forums and just BLATANTLY copy and paste articles?
How is this not a clean cut case of a potential SCAM? Can a judge not could see right through the lawsuits?
I thought website owners don't have ultimate responsibility for the thousands of users on said blog/message board? Most boards are moderated rather well but it could be a matter of hours. By that time, the story has 200 views, and is "EVIDENCE" in the lawsuit in a printed out format
A 5 year old could see through to how random users could be hired by this company to invoke harm, and then it magically be "reported" to Righthaven.
This type of fraud is almost too easy to accomplish when they are suing website owners for the action of "randoms", who may or may not be hired helpers.
Scary
Just like clock-work, a lot people posting comments that either make no sense or lack a basic understanding of what is going on.
Part of that is poor reporting by the Sun.
The lawsuits are not against boards or forumns where people post comments.
It is against websites that are copying and pasting all the story or part of the story from a LVRJ story. It is copyright infringement even if you post a link back to the original LVRJ story and give them credit.
I agree with the LVRJ strategy on this.
Instead of running around and asking thiefs to stop stealing copyright material, they are proactively suing them.
This will probably cause other sites out there to be actively stop stealing LVRJ site material and will not require being asked or sued to stop it.
It is their property.
I am betting money that other owners of newspapers even Greenspun are down deep cheering the LVRJ on.
With the debacle of Stations going through bankruptcy, Greenspun has to make a little pocket money to keep Green Valley running...suing is the American way to generate income.
I would talk about this to my friends but I am afraid of being sued by the RJ leeches
I would suspect that the RJ is about to get a lesson on the doctrine of "Fair Use" from at last one judge. Granted, someone who does a full cut-and-paste is gonna get nailed, but those who post a short excerpt with a link back to the story are going to be on pretty solid ground.
I took the precaution of asking for permission to use the RSS feed from the Sun on my blog site, which the Sun kindly granted. I'm not going to use any material from the RJ, much as I would like to provide a balanced news feed. It would be interesting to see if they would come after me if I did, but I don't have the time to deal with that kind of BS. If I were to win the lottery then I would do it in a heartbeat and dare them to try it.
And I think that is where the RJ's shill has made a major mistake. They appear to be targeting either a) sites that have in fact done a full cut-and-paste, or b) small sites without the resources to fight a suit even if they have a good defense. This time it seems they screwed up and targeted a site or two that is willing to fight them.
SgtRock Wrote: "The lawsuits are not against boards or forumns where people post comments.It is against websites that are copying and pasting all the story or part of the story from a LVRJ story."
You are incorrect in that statement because they ARE suing over an article that was posted to a forum. I saw the lawsuit first hand with attached copies straight from the forum/message board.
The RJ is done... Frivolous waste of the Taxpayers dollar taking up court time when these people clearly give the RJ credit for their stories.
If anything... these sites give the RJ traffic.
What a crock of crap... just like their New website.