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Published Friday, June 25, 2010 | 5:47 p.m.
Updated Friday, June 25, 2010 | 7:25 p.m.
Related Documents (.pdf)
Sun Coverage
- 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)
Longtime Las Vegas casino industry publisher Anthony Curtis was accused Friday of copyright infringement for posting on his website a Las Vegas Review-Journal story — a story involving Curtis’ company.
Curtis was among 10 website operators sued Friday in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas by Righthaven LLC, a company that obtains copyrights to Review-Journal stories and then sues website operators that allegedly infringe on the copyrights.
At least 47 such lawsuits have been filed since March 13.
Righthaven’s complaint shows that on April 22, the R-J published a story about an annual survey of Las Vegas show prices conducted by Curtis’ company, the Las Vegas Advisor.
Curtis’ blog, LVA in the Media, on May 6 then re-published the R-J story about Curtis’ survey, crediting the Review-Journal, court records show.
“The defendants publicly displayed, and continue to display, an unauthorized reproduction of the work (the story) on the website, in derogation of Righthaven’s exclusive rights,” the lawsuit charges. “Mr. Curtis has willfully engaged in the copyright infringement of the work.”
Like most defendants sued by Righthaven, Curtis said Friday that until he was contacted by the Las Vegas Sun about the lawsuit, he was unaware he had been sued or that there was a concern about his posting R-J stories or links on his website.
“It’s ironic and stupid,” Curtis said Friday, noting the R-J story was made possible because Curtis’ company provided R-J writer Mike Weatherford its survey on show prices.
“If they’re going to sue us for quoting us, that gets really stupid,” he said.
Also sued Friday by Righthaven were:
• The American Society of Safety Engineers in Des Plaines, Ill. One of the society websites, www.centralfl.asse.org, covering the Central Florida American Society of Safety Engineers chapter, allegedly posted information from a Review-Journal story from March about a bill in Congress to beef up OSHA enforcement in certain states including Nevada.
• No Quarter and Larry C. Johnson, operators of the noquarterusa.net
website. Johnson says on the website that he founded the BERG Associates LLC business consulting firm in Washington, D.C., focusing on terrorism and money
laundering, and that he has been a media analyst on terror incidents. No Quarter is accused of posting in April a Review-Journal story about the Nevada U.S. Senate race.
• John Thomas in Frostburg, Md., operator of the www.wisewagering.com website. The website is accused of posting an R-J story from February about Nevada sports book winnings from gamblers.
• Melissa Prepster and Lisa Mielke, who own the Kyle, Texas-based website www.eaglesfans.com, which allegedly posted an R-J review of an April 24 Eagles concert in Las Vegas.
• Brien Smith, president of Fullthrottletv.net, and the Full Throttle website, accused of posting a March 9 Review-Journal story about World Extreme Cagefighting.
• Vegas Backstage Access and Mike Stotts, who are associated with the website vbablogger.com and are accused of posting a March 10 R-J story about disputes between magician Scarlett — Princess of Magic (Rachel Jessee) and her manager.
• Salem Communications Corp. and Max Frost, who are associated with the websites www.blogtownhall.com and www.melcward.blogtownhall.com. Frost’s melcward site allegedly posted a March Review-Journal column about Nevada’s U.S. Senate race.
• Vannix Communications Group Inc. and its chief executive officer, Abby
Nixon, who are associated with the www.vanitytours.com website. The website is accused of posting an R-J story about Eve, The Nightclub at CityCenter.
• Realty One Group Inc., David Tina and Michael J. Nelson, whom the lawsuit says are associated with the websites www.featuredblog.com and www.michaeljnelson.featuredblog.com. Tina is a Realty One real estate broker who supervises Nelson, a real estate agent, the lawsuit says. Nelson’s website is accused of this year posting several Review-Journal stories about real estate.
Requests for comments were placed with all of the defendants.
That's a frivolous lawsuit. He should counter-sue.
The RJ is becoming a joke with these lawsuits. One of these times they are going to hit someone who has the resources and desire to give them a lesson on Fair Use. This just might be the one to do so.
Anthony Curtis is too smart to let this type of a law suit even come close to beating his company in court.
Years ago a friend in the video clipping business was sued by a man who created news events, searched for people willing to sell him clips of them and then sued them for copyright infringement. It was his little "cottage industry". Maybe the R-J is making up for lost ad revenue this way.
The law is clear.
One can not cut and paste copyright material and post on another site without getting permission even if they cite the original source.
The law is also clear that once you steal copyright material and unlawfully use then you can be sued.
Please notice....nobody cares to steal Sun copyright material.
So, if someone posts a link to a Review-Journal story on facebook for example, they run the possibility of getting sued?
Seriously, is the RJ just absolutely bat guano insane?
What possible other explanation is there other than they must be about to go bankrupt or something? Which given how bad that rag is, is quite possible.
It's kind of amazing that the R-J is taking time from serving as the official print organ of the Republican party to take the position that property rights outweigh free speech and free press rights. Can't wait for the R-J's tame editor to explain that one again!
So, Prof Green you write a text book on history.
I should be able under your standing of copyright law and "free speech" to be able to copy that text book at will and give it to everybody that wants it ( which will be a very small group) and not pay you one dime. Hey it free speech to give your book away to whoever....right????
I guess that is your right to think like that.
It does not change the what the courts say copyright law is and free speech is.
"So, if someone posts a link to a Review-Journal story on facebook for example, they run the possibility of getting sued?"
No anybody can link but you can't cut and paste a significant portion of the content and then think that linking back or citing the original will protect your theft of copyright material.
A simple link by itself is not stealing.
A small quote of the material is not stealing as long as you cite the source.
Copying and pasting the whole piece or the 1st few paragraphs or a significant portion is copyright infringement.
It is sad to see somebody that should be interested in protecting intellectual property have a poor understanding of the concept and law.
But his hatred of the LVRJ has filled his head full of junk.
once again...
the r-j is not even CLOSE to being bankrupt. they were the only paper in one of the fastest growing cities in the world for about 12 years and paid their employees very low wages.
they have a ton of cash.
that being said...since i worked for them...and i know how they think...these lawsuits don't surprise me.
greedy, greedy, greedy.
no, if you post a link to a story you will not get sued.
if you publish an EXCERPT of a story and SITE THE SOURCE you will not get sued. THAT is fair use.
you CAN NOT "cut and paste" a whole story even IF you site the source AND you can not publish a PART of a story without siting the source.
i'd give ANYTHING for one of the r-j's advertisers to sue the r-j for "puffed up" readership numbers.
All 40 of these copyright lawsuits could have been solved with a DMCA takedown notice (17 USC Sec. 512). Instead the RJ goes into playground bully mode and looks to pick on weaker kids and take their lunch money.
STUPID... The Bad PR the RJ is getting is going to cost them far more then they will ever collect...
I will NEVER, EVER link to an RJ story ever again..
Bye, Bye web traffic...
Let's make a deal.
So instead of LVRJ going around to sue people and scaring others and therefore preventing copyright infringement in the first place, I propose that Siromega give LVRJ $200,000 each year to staff people to search the internet and then go around and file DMCA takedown notices.
Sounds like a good deal to me.
"It's ironic and stupid," Curtis said Friday, noting the R-J story was made possible because Curtis' company provided R-J writer Mike Weatherford its survey on show prices.
"If they're going to sue us for quoting us, that gets really stupid," he said.
'Nuff said.
Methinks SgtRot is in love with Sherrrrmaannnn...
Isn't that sweet???
From a net search.
"Righthaven LLC, a Las Vegas company associated with Las Vegas Review-Journal owner Stephens Media LLC, filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against..."
I think VegasShopper has hit it.
With the Net, it's now possible for somebody else to start a media outlet online. There is a possibility that Vegas may someday have good journalism.
Unbelievable! Think anyone will talk to an RJ reporter after this fiasco?
I completely agree with Siromega. Yeah, Rock,there is a purpose for the laws and copyright infringement, but this is not it. Spirit of the laws vs. letter of the law.
I also realize that that is my opinion and others may disagree.
I will simply exercise my opinion by not patronizing the RJ.
@SgtRock
If media groups like Viacom, Discovery, Scripps, the four big movie studios, the recording industry, software development companies, etc, can afford to staff groups that patrol the internet looking for infringement, why not the RJ (and the Sun for that matter).
Its a cost of doing business in the digital age. Your suggestion that I (or anyone else) pay for it is beyond stupid.
And besides, I'm sure I could write some software that would scan the internet for copyright infringement, fill out a DMCA notice takedown form and send it off to the appropriate ISP for $50,000, not $200,000.
RJ complained about the endoscopy clinic verdict, but they remain sue-happy hypocrites.
WELCOME TO THE NEW ECONOMY MY FRIENDS!
It all started with the music industry realizing they could make far more money suing people for downloading or sharing music than in actual sales of their music products.
Then it spread to website owners and their clients when the photo and images industry retained the services of an Israeli company to use their internet software called "PicScout" to hunt down images that might not have been purchased (e.g. People downloading them enmasse from Google image search). With the starting extortion letter from these publishers of $5,000 per image (even though the image might have sold for less than $5.00 originally), you can see how lucrative suing people has become.
Now we have lawyers such as Steve Gibson of Righthaven, LLC, saying, "Aha! There is a yet untapped market in news content! People have always quoted news sources! Let's sue!" so his company buys the copyrights of the news articles and then sues the people quoting those articles. (Of course, I don't know whether he buys the copyright before or after he finds out someone is using an article, or whether legally that would make a difference).
So the new economy is simply this... if consumers won't spend the money you ask for the worthless trash you are selling then extort... er, I meant to say "sue", them for untold times the amount of money that the product could ever have hoped to generate in its lifetime.
That's the way it is folks, and until enough people push lawmakers to put an end to it the majority of our news and television commercials will be about suing someone for something and that is how most businesses and people in the future will make their living.
"Viacom, Discovery, Scripps, the four big movie studios, the recording industry, software development companies,"
They sue, too.
They don't go around saying "please.....please....stop stealing from me".
I think I should go to all the places that people who are posting and just steal whatever you got.
Instead of suing me or having me arrested, you should just come and ask me to "please....please stop stealing from me."
No actually they have stopped suing - or never sued in the first place.
The only large scale active copyright suits targeting individuals is the "US Copyright Group", suing on behalf of independent movie producers using the same type of scheme the RJ is using, just at a larger level (14,000 Doe suits so far). Here is a brief overview from NPR...
http://www.onthemedia.org/transcripts/20...
The RIAA stopped after filing about 18,000 suits because they realized the right thing to do was not to sue their customers. That and they lost money. Especially after many studies showed that P2P users are their best customers in terms of spending. The MPAA never really started. They both send DMCA requests to help "educate" their customers instead of extorting them. They've noted that in just about all of the cases, a DMCA notice is sufficient to get someone to stop sharing files.
Most other copyright lawsuits are towards large scale enterprises - e.g. people selling fraudulent software licenses. Not towards little Jimmy downloading a copy of Photoshop that he would have never been able to afford mowing lawns.
"The RIAA stopped after filing about 18,000 suits "
Their goal was never to sue everybody.
It was a strategic goal of preventing the theft in the first place.
They succeeding in shutting down Napster and Limewire and other server sharing software.
The layperson now has fear of stealing the music.
Just a FYI, they are still suing.
http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/stories/...
rightklaven should sue itself "sue-a-side"
T. Mitchell, I mean SgtRockhead, er...grandpa. Napster shut down 10 years ago because it collected and kept music on their server. Limewire has not shut down and is working just fine. It is software that shares files from user's computers. Many music companies provide free music on Limewire so not sure what your comment means.
And get off the knees. The LVRJ is the laughingstock of journalism known far and wide for it's laughable, well... everything.
Now go put your Dennis Weaver hat back on and ride your horse back to your mansion in the hills, or mommy's basement, whichever.