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Sunday, May 30, 2010 | 10:09 a.m.
Sun Coverage
- 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)
Former KTNV-TV sports and news anchor Ron Futrell is among the latest defendants in a series of lawsuits claiming websites have violated copyrights by posting Las Vegas Review-Journal stories without authorization.
Righthaven LLC sued Futrell and three other website operators Friday, lifting the number of copyright suits it has filed over R-J stories since March to 26.
Righthaven has partnered with the Review-Journal to sue and seek damages from parties allegedly infringing on copyrights. Righthaven acquires copyrights for specific R-J stories and sues websites that have posted those stories.
In its lawsuit against Futrell filed in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas on Friday, Righthaven alleges Futrell's website www.localslovevegas.com this year posted without authorization R-J stories on controversial comments Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman made about President Barack Obama and about a budget shortfall facing UNLV athletics programs.
Also sued Friday were:
--acdc-bootlegs.com and an individual associated with the website, Nate Althoff, both accused of posting R-J material about an AC/DC concert in Las Vegas. Court records show the AC/DC bootleg website has posted numerous AC/DC concert reviews by publications including the Des Moines Register, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Louisville Courier-Journal and the Kansas City Star.
--Odds On Racing, an Illinois company; and two individuals associated with it, Dana Parham and Robin Schadt. Righthaven claims the defendants posted a Review-Journal column involving horse racing on their website www.oddsonracing.com.
--Bisig Impact Group Inc., a Louisville, Ky., company, and an individual associated with the firm, Aaron Frisbee, whom Righthaven says are associated with the website southerngaming.com. The defendants are accused of posting without authorization R-J stories involving Earth Hour on the Las Vegas Strip and on Isle of Capri Casinos. Court records show these stories appeared on the Southern Gaming website associated with Southern Gaming and Destinations magazine. That website, ironically, notes that information posted there is copyrighted by Southern Gaming and Destinations.
To establish jurisdiction of the Nevada Court in the Southern Gaming case, Righthaven noted in its complaint that the defendants' contacts with Nevada are "continuous and systematic" because the website includes sports wagering information titled "Today’s Vegas Odds.''
Righthaven also says Southern Gaming's website links to the Las Vegas-area website www.vegasinsider.com and "defendants published and publish, on the (Southern Gaming) website, content specifically related to Las Vegas, Nevada-based politicians."
The suits each seek $75,000 in damages, attorneys' fees and injunctions barring the defendants from infringing on Righthaven's copyrights.
Messages for comment were left with the defendants.
Furtrell was given a temporary job out at KXNT (the Republican radio news station in town) He was fired from TV after the spaghetti bowl crash he was involved in. I believe he was a Republican official as well, along with former Ensign Staffer, former Republican Party offical, former kxnt talk show host, Heather Kydd.
I guess the RJ is now eating their own. Oh well, money is more important than ideology, or what good is ideology if you can't make money off it.
RJ -kxnt - and Republicans, is the Axis of "rightwingdom" falling apart?
...like there's ANYTHING in the Review-Journal worth posting!
As a former newspaper editor and publisher, I can honestly say the RJ is the worst newspaper in America, blatantly biased, and ultimately irrelevant.
Comment removed by moderator. Not relevant to story.
This is sad. If the LVRJ was interested in protecting copyright theft then the first step would be to publish what your company believes is "fair use" of your website material. Is it 25%? Is it more? The Stanford Fair Use project has stated that this area is changing. So it seems that if the real intent was to provide a standard of use then your company would post the standard for all of the public to see.
Instead of your paper has decided to sue first. Why haven't you made each lawsuit public by publishing each one in your paper.
If you want your paper to maintain its integrity then;
Publish each lawsuit.
Publish "fair use" standard for all to see.
Publish results of each lawsuit
Publish the name of each offending website in your paper BEFORE you file suit so that any and all have an opportunity to remove any item that YOU do not believe meets the "fair use " standard and thus, help the courts not waste time on things that could have been settled without the courts becoming involved.
Never again spend a second complaining about how lawsuits are hurting Las Vegas. You remind me of the NYTimes bashing "union busters" until they got into union busting.
Jon,
My advice to you and I learned it a long time ago.
"YOU NEVER GET IN BETWEEN, A MURDER-SUICIDE"
It has become so prevalent in America Business today, that if you can not compete, you kill off your competition and eventually you become nothing more than an empty shell of your self.
It's "Darwinism" at it's best, you see they can not adapt to their "ecological niche", therefore they will jump up and down like some eight-hundred pound Gorilla, as we watch their demise.
************************************************************
I posted this last Friday as a responds to Jon Ralston's Flash Point and I must admit I had not researched the issues surrounding the LVRJ and it's relationship with the industry, at that time. I went back and read past articles and reading some of the post here...I can only say "WOW".
mred quote..."I guess the RJ is now eating their own."
lvrjsucks quote..."first step would be to publish what your company believes is "fair use" of your website material. Is it 25%? Is it more? The Stanford Fair Use project has stated that this area is changing."
The LVRJ, is proving my point to Jon and that is they are not evolving, which is evident by not implementing the "fair use" principle and staying ahead of the changes.
To mred's quote..."now eating their own", the industry as a whole is seeing "cannabalization" at a rate we have never seen before, this is another reason why a organization has to remain competitive. A case in point is the struggle between the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.
vote with your dollars, folks. don't give any business to anyone that advertises in the r-j.
this is just the r-j pushing its weight around with mean-spirited lawsuits.
who CARES if a story is re-posted? the millisecond the story hits the paper it is essentially obsolete and really has no "value".
the readers of the story are the "value" to the newspaper. that's how they sell advertising.
By tdkarabatsos
"Te Sun, with its two or three hundred readers, is many levels below the RJ."
*****
tdalbatros,
The RJ is just right (pun intended) for you.
You won't be missed by us liberal, lefty commie pinkos if you leave Te Sun comment sections and never come back.
LustyToes: R U afraid of diversity?
I always wondered what happened to Futrell after he was kicked off the tube. I guess he has been sitting at his computer trying to find a new "career". He ended up being an embarassment to his employer although he wasn't a bad weather person. BUT let's get rid of the REAL embarassment to our town: Nina Radetich PLEASE !!!
The Review Journal is wasting money and I hope they don't win
To refer to the radio station that Ron does business with as a "Republican radio station" is so egregious simply because it is a libertarian oriented talk radio outlet. There's nothing Republican about it.
Pulling all links on my facebook page down ASAP! To the editor of the RJ: I don't have $75,000 so please don't come after me. Actually, I barely have $75. This is frightening.
well, they WILL win if the websites that re-posted those stories did not site the r-j as the source.
they WILL win.
the question...and take note, young law students...the question is will the amount they win be worth the p.r. damage to the r-j?
is the re-posting of these stories REALLY hurting the r-j? of course not.
the r-j makes money on advertising, NOT their content. advertisers buy the ads in advance of knowing what the content will be next to their ad. they buy ads knowing "x" amount of people will see their ad. so, as long as someone re-posting that story doesn't hurt the advertiser...who cares?
It's a new revenue stream!
That RJ, how ironic it is that a rag so ethically
challenged is going after this like they actually
have something precious to protect. Spare me.
My response is way too long so I wrote my thoughts on my blog:
http://www.senasellsvegas.com/blog/2010/...
Chunky says:
I respect and understand their right to protect their copyrighted work, but I suspect these are also profit based lawsuits as well.
On the surface it may seem like they make money from the advertising, but it's the content (albeit what it is) that draws readers and eyeballs that see the ads that pay the bills.
They offer links to share stories with others and I've seen a few links posted on local / regional forums on stories of interest to those user groups. My question is where do they draw the line between sharing and infringement? Maybe the web sites they are suing are commercial or for-profit blogs that are feeding the RJ content instead of creating their own?
Wish we had a definitive detailed answer on this!
Mr. Green, do you have any additional information?
RJ must be desperate for cash.
"ethically challenged"?
once again, give us some kind of factual evidence where they are "ethically challenged".
do you have a REAL example or is this just more of your liberal nonsense?
Pierre You need to get your eyes and ears checked.
Isn't it a good thing when people link to your articles? Doesn't that mean more people are reading your stories? And doesn't that mean you'll make MORE money, not less, when more eyes are on your online ads? Sounds like vindictiveness to me.
i don't think this is people "linking" to the articles. i think this is people "cutting and pasting" content without giving the r-j credit for it.
again, i think this is a "penny wise - pound foolish" act by the r-j. it just makes them look mean and that makes all their advertisers look mean.
I think people are missing the danger in this. The LVRJ is going after small companies that may not be able to defend themselves even if they are right. This is civil court not criminal court so if you can not afford the lawyers you will lose.
The NYTimes has an article (please don't sue me)
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/01/us/01s...
on what is happening with corporations and the internet. This isn't about copyright law anymore it is about who will control the internet and it looks like it will be large corporations that can afford to sue everyone else out of business.
I would encourage everyone who has been attacked by the LVRJ to contact the Stanford Law Project and try and get them to defend you as a test case.
I have to say that my favorite defendant in these law suits is the group (Tuff-N-Uff) who posted a story about themselves on their web site.
The LVRJ uses them for the story and then sues them when they post the story.
If a "journalist" writes a story with no interviews, is it really a story or is it just an opinion piece?
Probably the best thing to say to a LVRJ reporter would be "no comment".
I always thought the RJ and Sun were affiliated with each other, one in the morning, one afternoon. Like Phoenix Gazette and Arizona Republic. From this article it appears that the RJ is not in any way associated with the Sun.
I read the Sun on the web every day. I read RJ or Sun when in Vegas, whichever is available at the time.
How ironic that the RJ, which always bashes the legal system and lawyers who sue drunk drivers, incompetent health care providers, and defective product manufacturers, is now engaged in a scheme to file multiple lawsuits itself! The RJ must have had a change of heart. Now it likes the legal system of justice! Let's see if its lawsuits pass muster, though. I predict they will be dismissed by a judge based on the First Amendment which the RJ so vociferously supports.
"lawyers who sue drunk drivers"
again, please give an example of when they did this.
bakersfield:
the two papers are owned by 2 different companies. stephens media owns the r-j and greenspun owns the sun.
they operate together in a joa ( joint operating agreement ).
this is ONLY for the actual newsprint newspaper. not their websites or their other publications.
basically the r-j does all the ad sales, distribution, and accounting for the sun...ONLY the sun PAPER, not vegas.com or the sun's website, etc.
joa's were started back in the 1970's when many large cities had 1 big paper with an editorial agenda (republican or democrat) and another smaller paper (republican or democrat) and that smaller paper was in danger of closing. to keep a large city like las vegas or st. louis from only having one editorial voice, the government allowed to operate under "joa" agreements. the stories, content, and editorial was kept separate, but advertising and distribution was combined.
they're essentially totally obsolete now, but many of these agreements were made for 30 and 40 years!
i was a sales rep for the r-j and while not employed by the greenspun family (owners of the sun), the ads that i sold went into both papers and i got a commission on both. NOW the sun is purely a "vanity piece" for the greenspun family since it's really just a page in the r-j, but up until around 2006 the r-j came in the morning and the sun came in the afternoon.
Copyright is a copyright.
Simple as that.
It doesn't take a genius to understand that.
I don't recall the fired sports anchor ever to be one dealing with a full deck.
Commercial law practice.
They are going after statutory damages...where no actual damages have to be proven.
They may not get $75K but they may well get 25 or 50.
The answer is to link..don't cut and paste.
And they will win. It is virtually automatic. The issue is the damages.
To olecapt
"They are going after statutory damages...where no actual damages have to be proven."
Right.
"The answer is to link..don't cut and paste."
Wrong, since they are no longer going by the "fair use" practice that has been an internet standard for the last decade. The LVRJ has gone to the extreme which would include allowing them to sue for a link. You would need to come up with $20k to $30k to defend yourself. If you do not then you would lose your case.
And if you think this is silly, there have been people sued for linking and the ones who could afford to go to court usually won.
Linking Rights
http://www.templetons.com/brad/linkright...
One would assume that the RJ would be on Team Ron Futrell....his face book page is saturated with comments that suggest he is pro-Chad Christensen and a huge supporter of Tea Party.
stevem, Thanks for the info.
I worked in the building industry in the 1990's (still do) and when business slowed in California, the company I worked for opened an office in Las Vegas and from 1993-1996, I was in LV about 25 weeks a year. Learned a lot about Las Vegas business, gaming, marketing, etc. I still buy a paper when in town. I went and checked the RJ web site, Unlike Detroit which has great web sites for both papers, I prefer the Sun site for L.V. Far more business news in the Sun site.
As noted before, many of these companies/websites being sued are non profit.
90% of these stories would never have been read or seen if it wasn't for the websites posting them. So where is the true loss here? It's beyond absurd. This needs to be boycotted and stopped immediately. Logic needs to come into play first and foremost.
Looking at some of the case files, available at http://www.citmedialaw.org/search/node/r...
you can see that almost all of them give LVRJ credit for the article.
They aren't blatantly stealing. Rather in an attempt to share these stories, they have done some wrong.
A quick cease and desist letter should clear any issues.
But alas, it is all about the money. No communication at all. Many of these websites do not even produce their own news, let alone compete with the newspaper. They mean no harm and only wanted to share something they felt worthy, and in turn get sued for all of their life savings... Lovely
I just started a political blog site, and was granted permission from the Sun to include their RSS feed as a news source. The Sun's RSS feed is clearly identified as such and all links come back to the Sun's site. I put the feed up as a resource for users and enable them to easily navigate to current political stories.
I don't want to use the RJ simply because of the copyright issues they have raised, so I didn't even approach them and do not have any links to them.
So, if we cut & paste content from another news source into this area and the R&J publishes it on their site,
Does it make them libel? bahhahhahaa