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Published Tuesday, June 29, 2010 | 10:24 a.m.
Updated Tuesday, June 29, 2010 | 12:50 p.m.
Sun Coverage
- 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)
Three more website operators were sued for alleged copyright infringement Monday by Righthaven LLC, a company that is tracking down and suing those who post Las Vegas Review-Journal stories online without authorization.
At least 50 such lawsuits have now been filed since March in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas by Righthaven, which has partnered with the Review-Journal to sue over alleged theft of copyrighted material.
The latest defendants are:
-- New York company Insite Security Inc. and its CEO, Christopher Falkenberg, who run the website www.insitesecurity.com. A Review-Journal column quoting Falkenberg as saying criminals are targeting social networks allegedly was posted on the Insite Security website last month.
This is one of a few of the Righthaven lawsuits in which sources for R-J stories are sued by Righthaven for allegedly posting stories involving their own companies on their websites. In these cases, the R-J typically was clearly credited as the source of the stories, court records show.
-- Vote For The Worst LLC, a Utah company that runs the website www.votefortheworst.com. Also sued were two individuals allegedly associated with the company, Nathan E. Palmer of Lehi, Utah, and David J. Della Terza. Court records indicate a user of the www.votefortheworst.com website posted on the site a Review-Journal column in April involving American Idol finalists visiting Las Vegas.
-- Ben Jones of Flagstaff, Ariz., who runs the website www.thehousingbubbleblog.com. The site in April allegedly posted a Review-Journal story from April 9 regarding the Lake Las Vegas bankruptcy case. The site also posted information from other business stories by the R-J and its sister newspaper the Las Vegas Business Press, crediting those newspapers for the information, court records show.
The website also appears to have posted stories or portions of business stories from the Winnipeg Free Press, ABC 15 in Arizona, the East Valley Tribune in Arizona, the Arizona Republic in Phoenix, the Gazette in Colorado Springs, Colo., the Greeley Tribune in Colorado, the Aspen Times in Colorado, the Denver Post and the Vail Daily in Colorado.
Requests for comment were placed with the three latest defendants Tuesday.
A website operator sued by Righthaven on Friday, in the meantime, has denied it infringed on any Review-Journal copyrights.
NoQuarter and Larry C. Johnson, operators of the noquarterusa.net website, were accused of posting in April a Review-Journal story about the Nevada U.S. Senate race.
Johnson today said the material at issue was a commentary on the article that appeared in the Review-Journal.
"We did not reprint the article as a standalone piece nor did we claim credit for it. We linked appropriately to the original. The blog entry did quote and link to the Review-Journal article, but was accompanied by comments on the various portions of the article. We are confident that our use of the material falls within the fair use exclusion of the copyright law," Johnson said. "In addition, we do not charge for access to our blog and there is no financial benefit derived from the Review-Journal article by NoQuarter. If anything, we generated traffic to the Review-Journal site that they otherwise would not have and can document this through our host server.
"I understand the desire of the Review-Journal to protect itself from people who reprint the Review-Journal articles as their own and charge readers to access the material. But we did not do that and are quite confident that we have not violated any copyright of the Review-Journal," Johnson said. "This tactic by Righthaven is counter productive because not only is it frivolous, a waste of precious judicial resources, but it is unnecessarily confrontational. We’ll be sure never to quote or reference anything having to do with the Review-Journal going forward. They are unworthy of any publicity."
someone needs to tattoo "penny wise / pound foolish" in reverse on sherm frederick's head so he sees it in the mirror when he wakes up.
this is soooooooooooooooooooo stupid for the r-j to do this. the ill will they are creating will far outweight any minimal payment they get.
There have been a couple of articles on the RJ in the past year or so that got national attention (evidenced by an exponential number of comments above their regular pile and grindingly slow page loads for a day or so), i.e., Slashdot, Politico, etc. One must assume that Stephens Media made additional ad view revenue from those views, via the media mentions and article excerpts.
I can't help but wonder if those sites are in line to be sued as well. Because not to would be hypocritical and selectively litigious against smaller targets, I would think.
They're not likely to be sued because they didn't post the full story. Linking is OK, linking with a paragraph of a long story is probably OK, posting a majority or the entire story is not OK.
That said, I'm still disappointed in them not going the DMCA takedown notice route. Everyone else (music, movies, software, etc) who is having their stuff pirated online goes this way because they realize its a bad move (and a net loss) to sue the large number of people violating copyrights online. And the takedown notices are highly effective as well - once you get a nastygram from a big company in legalese your behaviors change.
What about the cached versions of the pages that are held by Google and other search engines? Now THAT is a fight I'd like to see.
steveeee-Not surprised that you've totally missed the point. This is hardly about a "minimal payment"
Righthaven is a start-up funded by Stephens Media. Their goal is to sell this "service" to other publications.
That's where the real money is. Get it now?
RJ continues to shoot itself in the foot and in the butt - bad publicity like this, means every web-site and blog can start posting about this insane 'attack'.
Also, there are many sources for the same story and one only has to 'cut and paste' to create a 'new story' and verbiage, to avoid a copyright lawsuit, so let's hope these people will wise up on how to do just that!
Chunky smells greedy lawyers preying on easy targets!
That's what Chunky thinks!
... NICE to-la-R/J, where I started my 35+ yr. career in print-journalism ('73), HASN'T changed-AT-all!!! STILL a PENNY-PINCHING, RIGHT/WING tool! LMAO!!!
'They are unworthy of any publicity."'
ouch. that is awesome.
again, i know how the r-j operates and these lawsuits are as stupid as the ones filing them.
Does anyone know if they have actually collected anything as of yet.
Sherm the PAC A DERM a suing sensation - hooray for Rightkalven.