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Saturday, Oct. 30, 2010 | 2:05 a.m.
Sun archives
- Righthaven gets legal win in copyright lawsuit campaign (10-28-2010)
- Righthaven files 2 copyright lawsuits, settles 3 (10-27-2010)
- Six more website operators facing Righthaven copyright lawsuits (10-21-2010)
- Righthaven defendant wins first lawsuit dismissal motion (10-20-2010)
- Righthaven files, settles more copyright lawsuits (10-13-2010)
- Sharron Angle signals interest in settling copyright lawsuit (10-9-2010)
- Attorneys accuse Righthaven of settlement shakedown (10-8-2010)
- Two more website operators sued for copyright infringement (10-7-2010)
- Seven more defendants settle Righthaven copyright lawsuits (10-6-2010)
- Group plans to sue over right to sell insurance to nonprofits (10-6-2010)
- Nevada Democratic Party settles copyright lawsuit (10-2-2010)
- Righthaven reaches another copyright settlement over R-J website content (9-30-2010)
- Amid new criticism, Righthaven sues additional website operators (9-29-2010)
- R-J owner faces counterclaim in copyright lawsuit campaign (9-28-2010)
- 5 more website operators sued over R-J copyrights (9-28-2010)
- Attorneys attack Review-Journal copyright suit arrangement (9-27-2010)
- Executive says suing over R-J copyrights worth the negative publicity (9-26-2010)
- Lawyers argue R-J stories on Web aren’t protected by copyright (9-25-2010)
- Attorney: Righthaven copyright suits a free speech threat (9-23-2010)
- Observers note uncertainty over future of Righthaven/R-J copyright suits (9-21-2010)
The online freedom of speech group Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) continues to pound away on the business model of Las Vegas copyright enforcement company Righthaven LLC, with its attorneys hitting Righthaven with another counterclaim on Friday.
Besides the counterclaim, the EFF is challenging Righthaven’s right to earn attorney’s fees in any of the lawsuits it files and is seeking to block Righthaven from trying to seize the website domain names of the website owners it sues.
Righthaven, the Las Vegas Review-Journal’s copyright enforcement partner, has since March sued at least 166 website operators throughout North American in federal court in Las Vegas.
The suits are typically filed without warning or a request that website operators and bloggers remove Review-Journal material posted on their websites without authorization.
Righthaven and the Review-Journal say the lawsuits are necessary to stop copyright thieves from stealing from the Review-Journal.
Some defense attorneys and critics, however, charge Righthaven is running a frivolous lawsuit litigation shakedown operation, because it sues for $150,000 then usually settles for $5,000 or less — with the settlements less expensive than hiring attorneys to defend the cases.
The EFF, which has called Righthaven a threat to free speech on the Internet, in September signed on to defend the Democratic Underground in a Righthaven copyright infringement lawsuit and filed a counterclaim in that case against Righthaven and Review-Journal owner Stephens Media LLC.
Friday’s counterclaim was filed by EFF attorneys on behalf of Righthaven defendant Thomas DiBiase, a former federal prosecutor who has a website covering “no-body” murder cases — cases that are investigated and prosecuted in which the victim’s body hasn’t been recovered.
The counterclaim says there was no infringement of a Review-Journal story that was displayed on the www.nobodycases.com website because the display was protected by the fair use doctrine of copyright law.
The attorneys say that’s partly because the story at issue is still available for free on the Review-Journal website while Righthaven has no plans to use the story in ways copyright holders normally do — by reproducing it, making derivative works of it or selling, leasing or publicly displaying it.
DiBiase, on the other hand, maintains the no-body website as a nonprofit entity.
“Mr. DiBiase publishes the No Body Website for the purpose of assisting prosecutors and homicide investigators in bringing justice to the friends and families of ‘no body’ murder victims,” Friday’s court filing said.
“Assisting prosecutors and homicide investigators in bringing justice to the friends and families of ‘no body’ murder victims benefits the public interest,” the filing said.
In a separate filing, DiBiase’s attorneys challenged Righthaven’s standard lawsuit demand that the defendant’s website domain name be locked and transferred to Righthaven.
Righthaven typically doesn’t actually try to take control of domain names, but its officials have said domain names are assets that could be seized should defendants fail to pay judgments or if they don’t stop infringing.
Attorneys critical of Righthaven have said that seizure of domain names is common in trademark litigation, but there’s no basis for it in copyright law, and the seizure demands in Righthaven’s lawsuits appear to be included to pressure defendants into settling. EFF attorneys chimed in on that issue Friday.
“Righthaven’s request for a domain-name transfer fails because a plaintiff in a copyright case is only entitled to those remedies that Congress has authorized specifically. The Copyright Act contains no provision permitting domain-name transfer as an infringement remedy, and therefore, a plaintiff may not seek it,” the attorneys wrote. “The remedy of domain-name seizure fails for the additional reason that it would violate Mr. DiBiase’s First Amendment rights. Mr. DiBiase has the right to continue using his domain name to provide information to the public, notwithstanding Righthaven’s infringement allegations concerning a tiny portion of his website.”
The EFF attorneys also asserted Righthaven has no right to seek attorney’s fees in its lawsuits, as the Supreme Court has held that statutory attorney’s fees are only available where there is an independent attorney-client relationship.
In Righthaven’s case, the company is half owned by Las Vegas attorney Steven Gibson and half owned by an affiliate of Review-Journal owner Stephens Media.
“Righthaven is a made-for-litigation entity that was set up and is run by the very lawyers who are prosecuting cases on its behalf. Righthaven is not independent from its litigation attorneys, and therefore, it may not seek statutory attorney’s fees,” the EFF attorneys said in the filing.
“A ruling dismissing these remedies with prejudice is important because it appears that Righthaven’s business strategy is to file dozens of cookie-cutter lawsuits and then seek settlements regardless of the merits. A defendant should not have to account for the sham remedies of domain-name transfer and attorney’s fees when deciding how to respond to Righthaven’s lawsuit,” they wrote.
The attorneys representing DiBiase in Friday’s filings are Kurt Opsahl and Corynne McSherry of the EFF; Colleen Bal and Bart Volkmer of the Palo Alto, Calf., office of the law firm Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati; and attorney Chad Bowers in Las Vegas.
Righthaven hasn’t yet responded to Friday’s filings in the DiBiase case.
Separately, Righthaven sued seven more website operators in federal court in Las Vegas on Friday. Suits were filed against:
• Paul Stewart, alleged registrant of the website www.harlanforum.net in Harlan County, Ky. An Aug. 11 Review-Journal political story allegedly was posted on that site without authorization.
• Randolph Grant, whom Righthaven says is the registrant of the website spiceislandertalkshop.com, which is a message board focusing on Grenada. Righthaven claims an Aug. 29 Review-Journal story about economic problems contributing to a recent murder-suicide was posted on that site.
• RK Inc. and Richard Kwei, allegedly associated with the website www.987forum.com. An Aug. 11 Review-Journal political story was displayed on that site without authorization, the lawsuit alleges.
• Alex James, alleged registrant of the website www.coolwickedstuff.com. A Review-Journal story from Sept. 10 about weddings planned for the date 10/10/10 (Oct. 10, 2010) allegedly was posted there.
• Jim Horn and Stephen Krashen, associated with the site www.schoolsmatter.info, where an Aug. 29 Review-Journal story allegedly was posted without authorization. The story was called “Thinking — it only hurts a little.”
• Duncan Shields, alleged owner of the website www.intmensorg.info, where the Aug. 29 murder-suicide story allegedly was posted without authorization.
• Thomas J. Leyden, whom Righthaven says does business in Utah as “Strhate Talk Consulting” and owns the website domain name formerskinhead.blogspot.com. He’s accused of copying and displaying an Oct. 19 Review-Journal column about the FBI allegedly pressuring a woman for information about the 1998 murders of two anti-racist skinheads in Las Vegas.
Leyden, who recently moved to Las Vegas, said a request for comment from the Las Vegas Sun was the first he had heard of the lawsuit and that no one from the Review-Journal had contacted him or asked him to remove the column from his website.
Leyden said it was not his intent to infringe on a copyright and that the column was posted because of public interest in the murders in which officials arrested and convicted one man and are still trying to gather evidence against one or more additional suspects.
“My idea was to get more readership for them (the Review-Journal) and to let people know about the case,” Leyden said.
A former neo-Nazi skinhead, Leyden said that for years he’s been an advocate against hate and hate crimes and works against the racist skinhead movement by educating the FBI and other law enforcement organizations, the military, educators and students.
Messages for comment were left for the other defendants. As in all its recent lawsuits, Righthaven seeks damages of $150,000 apiece from the defendants as well as forfeiture of their domain names.
""My idea was to get more readership for them (the Review-Journal) and to let people know about the case," Leyden said."
How would copying and pasting the entire story drive readers to the LVRJ?
Are your readers so dumb that they need to read the story twice on two different websites?
If you want to drive readership then follow common sense, simple ethics and use the gray matter between your ears.
List the headling, a few sentences, a burb about the story and a link.
Posting the entire story is just stealing it.
Don't steal.
Have some ethics.
Why would posting ONE story do $150,000 worth of damages to the Review Journal?
How much money DID the Review Journal loose by posting one story on a website that almost no one knows about, except a search engine?
"Posting the entire story is just stealing it.
Don't steal.
Have some ethics."
And $150,000 is the value of that newspaper article, isn't it?
This is equivalent to filing a $100,000 suit for a parking lot door ding in your Ferrari--and then offering to settle for $10,000 because the defendant won't be able to afford to go to trial for less than $50,000.
I keep hoping that the legal community will clean itself up--but that would require some ethics.
$150,000 comes right out the copyright law.
It is statutory damages and not economic damages.
The legislature in DC put that into the Federal law as a means to discourage copyright infringement in the first place.
If you dont' like the law then don't blame the lawyers but you should blame your representatives and senators and Bill Clinton who signed the law into existance.
Again, none of this would happen if people just used the gray matter between their ears.
How much common sense and basic ethics does it take to know that copying and pasting another's work is wrong?
This has never been about defending their copyrights, they could do that by just sending out an Email to anyone that posted a story from their news paper! Some of these Mom & Pop websites didn't even know they did anything wrong. Most were not even in Vegas, and just ran across the story on the web. The story was of interest to their little group that used their web blog or forum.
The news paper provides a link so they get readership to pass the story along, and by no way is anything they post in their online edition going to sell copies, it's news that is dead after someone reads it, unless the story is about that person or someone they know that is reading it at the time.
Then they might save the story, but other wise it goes in the trash, read once thrown away it's not a Book, CD or DVD where someone might be willing to pay money for it after you used it!
Yes if a another news paper used their story, they should be suing, and winning their case, it's a hard to understand were the line should be drawing in the sand on this subject!
I don't know of one author that puts their whole book on-line and then goes out and sues the person that posted it in their blog! Why is that, because no writer provides a link to their whole book on-line,and it has value and people are willing to pay money to read what the author wrote, unlike a news story that is dead a few hours after it was written.
People buy news papers with the hopes of finding that one story that might be of interest to them, I know of no one that reads every story in the news paper, hell anymore your lucky to find anything you want to read!
The papers want's their stories to be read, and that is why they have a link to the stories, it increases their readership, and that brings in more money from their advertisers!
Does this whole thing have an effect on anybody that still reads their new paper, and the rest of the people in this world that will post anything on-line? "Yes" Sorry to say it has everybody afraid to even post one line and a link to their paper!
The law firms business plan, let's see I am lawyer that is not making any money, maybe I can buy the copyrights after the fact that someone posted a story, then sue them, sounds good to me I will hire one clerk, to find out who posted anything, make up one form letter then sue them $150,00 a pop,I know they will settle for less, as the cost to go to court is just not worth it to defend themselves, this will be great fill in work till I can find someone who thinks I know what I am doing to hire me!
If you don't think this will affect you I got news for you, if more law firms jump on this kind of band
wagon, you might as will shut down the web, and freedom of speech, they might come up with a search engine that will find that one paragraph that you used from a news paper to make a point, and sue you for using it!
Chunky says:
"Some defense attorneys and critics, however, charge Righthaven is running a frivolous lawsuit litigation shakedown operation"
That's what Chunky thinks too!
Sam, it is this easy: Websites should stop copying and pasting all or a significant part of work that somebody else spent money generating.
If people follow that common sense ethic then nobody would be sued.
If somebody copy and pastes the whole story then the link back to the original is totally worthless. Why would readers want to read the same story twice?
Notifying people cost money. You have to have staff to monitor the internet. Then do research on how to contact the website owner. Then send a letter. Then respond to returning correspondence. Then followup to see if the website owner is now in compliance.
If you want to fork up some cash to LVRJ to fund tha labor which would be in the 10,000's then go right ahead.
The Sun basically never sends out copyright notices. The Sun has no clue who is sending their copyright. Why? Because the Sun does not have the money to spend for all that labor.
So again, if people did basic good decent actions and not copy and paste then there would be no lawsuits.
All they need to do is list a few sentences from the original. List the headline. Place a link back to the original. All that is fair use. All that is decent ethical thing to do.
If you want to steal then don't act all suprise when you have to pay the crime.
If you have a low understanding of ethics then don't run a website.
"If somebody copy and pastes the whole story then the link back to the original is totally worthless. Why would readers want to read the same story twice?"
And since the R-J wasn't charging for those stories, and the advertising revenue lost was nearly zero, $150,000 makes sense how?
Yeah, yeah, I know, the law allows it for a certain category of infringement--intended primarily for video and audio recordings, where there is substantial economic value involved, unlike old news stories.
But I thought ethics was your claim? But we are discussing lawyers, aren't we, so ethics is not relevant to the discussion, is it?
Since I have owned and ran web sites since the start of the Internet I don't agree with the way Righthaven or the RJ are handling this problem.
The real problem is like a lot of things, if someone is going to run a web site or a blog they need to know the rules and laws that go with that responsibility. Many blog and web site owners think it is the wild west and they can take anything they want and use it for their own use.
I pay good money for my graphics and content, if you are going to run a web site you need to do the same.
There are easier ways of handling the violations and cheaper then the RJ and Righthaven are doing but bottom line is they have the right to do what they want about their copyrights.
I handle it different but that is me. It is their work product and copyrights and they can do what they want.
I think long term their method is going to cost them more in money and goodwill then they are going to gain.
Sgt James F Nance Jr Rock continues to defend the shakedown artists known as Righthaven.
Sgt James F Nance Jr Rock, what about Righthaven's suit where they're suing after only 4 paragraphs out of a 34 paragraph article was used? Roughly 11% of the article was reproduced, with a link back to the main article and attribution to the R-J:
"Court records show the Review-Journal posted a 34-paragraph story on its website May 13 about Republican Nevada U.S. Senate candidate Sharron Angle titled "Tea Party power fuels Angle."
"The records show that on the same day, Democratic Underground website user "pampango" posted the first four paragraphs of that story, crediting it to the Review-Journal, and included a link to the rest of the story on the Review-Journal website."
Defend that, jfNance32. That clearly falls under fair use.
fairuser....if people followed basic ethics then there would be nothing for Righthaven to sue for.
Kevin.....that is what the courts are for. They can determine if that fair use or not. There has to be some cut off point. The law says that copying and pasting a singificant portion is not fair use.
According to the Sun's own guidelines, copying and pasting 4 paragraphs out of a 34 paragraph story is not fair use.
So both the Sun and the LVRJ understanding of fair use disagree with your understanding.
It is really up to the court system to decide that issue. Righthaven has put forth its claim and interepretation of fair use.
What if everyone did what the RJ does? The courts would really be jammed. I thought these Arkansas yokels were against "frivolous law suits?" They criticised the endoscopy clinic verdicts and clog the courts with their nuisance suits, what a group of henchmen!
"fairuser....if people followed basic ethics then there would be nothing for Righthaven to sue for."
If the R-J had sent an email to the owners of these sites about these apparent infringements, they would have been corrected immediately in about 99% of the cases. Even a request for some appropriate payment (say, $250 for an entire article) would have been probably paid by half of these sites without any argument, since most of these infringements were unintentional or (in the case of the Cat Lady) out of ignorance. Righthaven's methods, while technically legal, reflect greed more than anything else.
Fair use is a completely impossible thing to determine because it depends on purpose and the nature of the material copied. How much can you legally copy? Even one sentence would be enough to get you sued, because fair use is only an affirmative defense at trial, and there is no statutory definition of fair use, or even a bright line case law definition of it. Would you win at trial, if you copied one sentence? Certainly. Could anyone afford to take it to court? No, because Righthaven's tactics are to make heavy use of discovery to run the meter, preventing anyone but the very wealthy from defending themselves.
"The courts would really be jammed. I thought these Arkansas yokels were against "frivolous law suits?""
Until their greed got the best of them. I've been bothered for a long time by frivolous lawsuits--like the gal who sued International House of Pancakes for $2 billion because they ran out of one of their specials. What happened with the Righthaven suits is a reminder that both DMCA needs to be substantially revised, and that judges need to stop seeing civil litigation as a strategy for keeping lawyers from having to sell their Mercedes.
"If the R-J had sent an email to the owners of these sites about these apparent infringements"
Ok.....go to LVRJ. Offer to pay all the cost associated with the labor to monitor the Internet. Find copyright infringement. Find the address of the website owner. Send the letter. Respond to returning correspondence. Follow-up to see if the website owner complied.
I am sure that the LVRJ would stop using Righthaven except for the cases where the website owner did not comply.
You just need to fork over 10,000's in dollars each year to the LVRJ.
Because of this cost, that is the main reason why the Sun does not defend its copyright. It only in once or so a year send a letter. Most of the time they have no clue that copyright infringement is going on.
They just can't afford it.
Chunky says:
He doesn't think very many people support the ongoing theft of someone's intellectual property, it's the shakedown methodology of Righthaven and their heavy handed approach.
It's become a black-eye for the RJ and an ego trip for Gibson / Righthaven.
That's what Chunky thinks!
"Assisting prosecutors and homicide investigators in bringing justice to the friends and families of 'no body' murder victims benefits the public interest," the filing said.
The Public Interest
The "formerly" preserved news article documentation of 30 fatal dog attacks per year on the site was designed for similar purposes, as well as to aid research groups who are attempting to locate fatal dog attack information that goes beyond a name or date listing. Additionally, family members nearly always want these victims remembered to prevent a future occurrence -- not forgotten and buried into an archive.
(See previous Sun story: http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010/sep...)
Go EFF go!
The problem with that argument is that those websites can accomplish the same thing by just following fair use by just printing a few sentences, the headline, citation and then a link back to the original site.
There is no need for them to copy and paste all or a significant portion of the story.
That don't have to perform copyright infringement to serve the public interest.
"Because of this cost, that is the main reason why the Sun does not defend its copyright. It only in once or so a year send a letter. Most of the time they have no clue that copyright infringement is going on.
They just can't afford it."
The cost of finding an infringement and sending an email is about a dollar. If the R-J demanded $250 for an infringement with the threat of a lawsuit, they would probably get the $250 half the time--and in pretty short order, nearly all the unintentional infringements would have stopped.
fairuser....obviously you have never ran a business.
How long do you think it takes to find an infringment?
How long do you think it takes to find the owner contact information for a website?
How long do you think it takes to type up a letter with the specific information related to that specific infringement?
How long do you think it takes to record sending the letter in some database?
How long do you think it takes to read returning correspondence and then generating a letter to respond to the responce?
How long do you think it takes to check to see if the offending party complies with the request?
How long do you think it takes to send the offending party a follow-up letter if they are non-responsive?
How long do you think it takes to send that information to a lawyer for those that not responsive?
How long do you think it takes to record all that activity in a database?
Of course, you have never ran a business. All the above takes labor and that labor is not free.
With Righthaven the cost of copyinfringement protection is zero to LVRJ.
If you want to donate 10,000's of dollars to spend on labor then go right ahead. LVRJ would drop Righthaven and just use your cash.
Again, all this would never happen if people just use common sense and simple ethics....don't copy and paste all or a significant part of another person's work. It is just plain wrong.