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Published Friday, May 14, 2010 | 9:23 a.m.
Updated Friday, May 14, 2010 | 1:41 p.m.
Sun Coverage
- 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)
Two more website operators were sued Thursday over allegations they posted copyrighted Las Vegas Review-Journal stories without authorization.
Righthaven LLC, a company that has been obtaining copyrights to R-J stories, has now sued 13 companies, organizations and individuals since March claiming that by running R-J stories on their Internet sites they have violated copyrights held by Righthaven.
One suit filed in federal court in Las Vegas on Thursday was against Jack D. Wooden, whom Righthaven says owns the Internet domain madjacksports.com, a sports betting website that says it is "the number one handicapping forum on the web."
The suit claims the madjacksports.com copied and displayed without authorization "literary works" -- including R-J stories involving UNLV sports and hunting and fishing.
Also sued was Ecological Internet Inc. of Green Bay, Wisc., a nonprofit group that runs the websites forests.org and ecoearth.info. The lawsuit claims a Feb. 17 story by the R-J involving a proposed national monument was displayed on these websites as recently as Wednesday, allegedly violating a copyright obtained by Righthaven on April 21.
"Ecological Internet did not seek permission, in any manner, to reproduce, display, or otherwise exploit the work," the lawsuit charges.
Glen Barry, president of Ecological Internet, said Friday that an inquiry from the Las Vegas Sun was the first he had heard of the lawsuit.
"Perhaps they (Righthaven) should talk with us first. We have resolved similar concerns with half a dozen media outlets," Barry said. "We run the pre-eminent environmental portals, and as a nonprofit we believe archiving (of news stories) is a legitimate activity. We do this to solve these terrible ecological crises."
Barry added that in the group’s database of 120,000 articles going back two decades, there were just four archived stories from the Review-Journal.
"All had been accessed zero times. I have (now) removed them," he said.
Asked about the lawsuit against Wooden, the madjack administrator said in an e-mail Friday: "We ... are not responsible for what members post on the message forum. If someone actually did post their material, show us where it was posted and we will remove it."
In the meantime, a group called Media Matters for America has posted a story suggesting the Review-Journal could be violating campaign finance law by having Righthaven selectively sue certain groups while allowing conservative U.S. Senate candidate Danny Tarkanian to post R-J stories on his website. Righthaven and the R-J declined to comment to Media Matters for that story.
"Several campaign finance attorneys said the practice of allowing one political group to use copyrighted information, but blocking others could be considered making an in-kind contribution to one political group or candidate and not others. They based this on the fact that the copyrighted material is a valuable entity," said the story by Media Matters, described as a nonprofit "progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media."
This country desperately need major litigation reform to stop the endless parade of meritless lawsuits.
Unfortunately, the ruling party (Democrats) is firmly in the pocket of the trial lawyers, so this crazy system won't be improving anytime soon.
lets keep perpetuating the blame game like this is all new......
The Democrats are the "ruling party"? Only for 18 months, and six to go.
The problem is that the current law that allows this sort of thing is difficult to change because of the close power division between the parties, and that is not likely to change.
Who the heck thinks stories in the RJ are "valuable entities" ? Nearly the whole front section of the RJ is wire service copy from the AP and elsewhere. Typically there are only one or two stories in the front section from actual RJ reporters.
as much as i hate the "other paper"...if someone "cuts and pastes" a story and doesn't AT LEAST say "from the r-j" at the bottom...you SHOULD be sued.
Why are supposedly anti-litigation radical right-wingers always the first to run to the courthouse to file lawsuits?
They whine about tort reform and slander the legal profession as being out of control while having armies of lawyers on retainer just waiting for their next case.
*This latest example of blatant GOP hypocrisy brought to you by the revile-journal, Nevada's largest republican media outlet.
@ LastThroes Right on, brother!
Also, it seems the R-J is being selective on who can reprint the two to three stories they actually write each week. Although, maybe the defendants in question do this, but why not attribute the originating source? I see it all the time with media outlets anyway.
lmao...liberals.
you're trying to equate this to a "slip and fall" lawsuit?
hahaha!
pathetic.
see how long it would take the very VERY liberal "sun" to do the same thing if they found out you were taking their stories without their permission.
For those of you who are bashing lawyers and democrats in the same breath---Review Journal is a Republican mouthpiece. Rant on about their Republican lawyers.
Steven Gibson aka Righthaven LLC was set up in January 2010. Search Google for Righthaven LLC and you will see they are nothing more then a lawsuit company. They do no other business except file law suits across the county.
Now the RJ has the right to prosecute those using their material but it is a bit strange that their "copyrights" are acquired by a third party.
I have a feeling the only "copyrights" that RightHaven acquires are ones that they find people using other places.
They "acquire" the rights and file the law suits.
Pretty much betting they don't own the rights to any stories that have don't have a lawsuit filed on them.
ghp2006 & stevem, Most if not all of these websites did have LVRJ.com as a source linking back. In more than one place was it evident that the articles came from that LVRJ source. The main problem here is that, essentially if an article is copy and pasted in whole away from LVRJ.com, readers would not go to that website to read it, where ad revenue is key. You can view many of the claims in PDF form at citmedialaw.org. In the PDF file, Righthaven LLC is claiming irreparable harm in an amount Righthaven cannot assertain. Most of these websites were doing the paper a favor by linking and posting articles that otherwise would have never been seen. Yet they are the bad guys?
R-J writes something someone wants to copy, wow, it is such a milk toast paper. I would think they would consider it a compliment.
The LV R-J encourages sharing on their articles on their website, so this is all a huge scam. The RightHaven found a loophole and are out to steal money from hard working business owners. Its a complete joke!
This country desperately need major litigation reform to stop the endless parade of meritless lawsuits.