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Thursday, Sept. 2, 2010 | 9:56 a.m.
Sun archives
- PR firm Kirvin Doak sued by Righthaven over Celine Dion story it promoted (9-1-2010)
- Why we are writing about the R-J copyright lawsuits (9-1-2010)
- Settlement reached after judge refuses to dismiss copyright suit (8-31-2010)
- Judge questions Righthaven over R-J copyright suit costs (8-26-2010)
- Consumer group offers help to defendants over R-J copyright suits (8-25-2010)
- Righthaven CEO’s law firm in merger (8-24-2010)
- R-J accused of entrapment over copyright enforcement (8-23-2010)
- Blogger asks to pay $200 to close R-J copyright suit (8-20-2010)
- 2 lawsuits over R-J copyrights lift total to 100 (8-19-2010)
- Website operators use new defenses to fight R-J copyright suits (8-18-2010)
- Righthaven reaches settlements in 2 cases over R-J copyrights (8-12-2010)
- Righthaven sues Democratic Underground website over R-J posting (8-11-2010)
- 5 more websites sued over R-J story copyrights (8-10-2010)
- Websites, bloggers make moves to avoid Righthaven lawsuits (8-9-2010)
- Righthaven continues suits over R-J copyrights; 91 total (8-6-2010)
- State Democratic Party fighting R-J copyright lawsuit (8-5-2010)
- Legal attack dog sicked on websites accused of violating R-J copyrights (8-4-2010)
- Some targets of Righthaven lawsuits fighting back (8-4-2010)
- Are website copyright violations hurting newspapers' bottom line? (8-4-2010)
- Defendants in R-J copyright lawsuits speak out (8-4-2010)
- Five more R-J copyright lawsuits filed (8-3-2010)
- R-J mob source hit with copyright suit (7-27-2010)
- More copyright lawsuits filed over Review-Journal stories (7-23-2010)
- Conservative website among 3 sued over R-J copyrights (7-20-2010)
- 3 suits over alleged R-J copyright infringements bring total to 72 (7-16-10)
A Washington, D.C., group advocating against taxes on food is among the latest to be sued for copyright infringement after a Las Vegas Review-Journal editorial was posted on its website.
Righthaven LLC, the Review-Journal's partner in a copyright infringement lawsuit campaign launched in March, filed suit in federal court in Las Vegas on Wednesday against Americans Against Food Taxes, Goddard Clausen Public Affairs Inc. and Ben Goddard.
The suit, like most Righthaven complaints, seeks $75,000 in damages and forfeiture of the defendant's website domain name. Righthaven, however, usually demands $7,500 or less to settle and allows infringers to keep their website name.
At least 115 lawsuits have now been filed by Righthaven.
Officials at Americans Against Food Taxes couldn't immediately be reached for comment on the lawsuit, which complains a Feb. 15 Review-Journal editorial about a proposed soda pop tax was posted on the group's website, www.nofoodtaxes.com, without authorization.
Court records indicate the entire editorial was displayed on the anti-food tax group's website, with the Review-Journal receiving full credit for the post and a link to the Review-Journal website.
"Americans Against Food Taxes has willfully engaged in the copyright infringement of the work (the editorial)," the lawsuit charged.
Two other website operators sued by Righthaven this week, in the meantime, have posted notices on their websites defending their actions and said they may need to seek funds from supporters to help cover their legal costs.
"The complaint against us involves three Las Vegas Review-Journal articles that we posted on S&L for analysis and discussion under the ‘fair use’ protection of U.S. copyright laws," Steven Gilbert in New York wrote on his Sweetness & Light website, which was sued over stories on Nevada's U.S. Senate race and a Tea Party rally in Searchlight attended by Sarah Palin.
"All three of the articles were excerpted, and all three cited and linked back to the original source. Despite the claim in the complaint, none of the three articles were still available on S&L at the time the lawsuit was filed.
"We have published S&L for more than five years, and have posted over 10,000 articles. We have never had a single copyright complaint from any media outlet. On the contrary, we are regularly sent articles by news organizations for us to post for analysis and discussion.
"Of course if we had been requested by Righthaven to remove any of their material, we would have done so immediately. But as far as we know, they have not requested anyone to remove their material before suing them for infringement," Gilbert wrote.
And Michael Nystrom, who has a blog about politician Ron Paul called the Daily Paul, said Righthaven has been engaging in a "shakedown" against bloggers and website owners.
"While it sucks for me personally to be sued, I intend to fight this battle to the end, resources permitting," Nystrom wrote.
"I want to thank the members of the 'Liberty community' who gave me great support today as I digested this news ... Based on what I have heard so far from my fellow patriots, and what other defendants are planning, I believe that Righthaven picked the wrong community to mess with!
"In the mean time, I suggest that fellow bloggers and webmasters scour your sites for any links back to lvrj.com. Righthaven has sued websites that published just four paragraphs of a 36-paragraph story, including a link. To be safe, I wouldn't even link back to (lvrj.com) at all. Who knows -- they might even sue you for that," Nystrom wrote.
Also, Review-Journal Publisher Sherman Frederick on Wednesday discussed the lawsuits in a blog, telling readers: "So, I'm asking you nicely once again -- don't steal our content. Or, I promise you, you will meet my little friend called Righthaven."
HAHAAAHA. RJ is DOOMED. Boycotted forever.
Geez, what's next? Are they going to start suing high school and college students when they start writing their term papers and use an article out of the LVRJ for their paper?
Why anyone would want to use an article out of that rag is beyond me !!!
These crooks need to be put on the unemployment line. Boycott the LVRJ!!. I for one, will not ever darken the pages of the LVRJ now or any time in the future. Of course that probably doesn't mean much to them, however if enough people do the same this white collar terrorism and greed might actually be able to be reigned in. By the way it's people like these that have put this country and the world in the situation we all now find ourselves in. And no the Tea Party is not the answer.
Build partnerships; issue C&Ds and DMCA takedowns if needed; publish guidelines for what you consider adequate and proper Fair Use. Drive revenue out of these people's click-through traffic, not by suing them out of house and home and then scalping their domains on the black market.
Or, alternatively, you can take down lvrj.com and replace it with a phone number for people to subscribe to the print paper. Or put up a 100% content paywall. That'll solve the problem.
RJ sucks.
I think it's fair to say the "Management of the RJ sucks," but I think the paper some decent reporters. Conversely, I think the news judgement is close to, if not awful. Imagine being a reporter there and having to work for Frederick and under an editor like Mitchell who seems to feel the same as his publisher, knowing that these lawsuits are going to, at some point, restrict your ability to do your job.
"These crooks need to be put on the unemployment line"
Yes, the people who are stealing other people's copyright material need to be punished.
I would not go as far as putting them on the unemployment line.
Oh my, Sarge, you are certainly an angry fellow. I just can't understand why you appear to lack any compassion for those who violated a law without knowing the law, which is a law that in this case cost the "victim," as far as anyone can tell, not cent.
I guess the editor of the Seattle Times, which has a million or so readers and seven Pulitzers under its belt hast no idea what he's talking about when he said that "take down" letters generally work.
First, this is the real world not some sandbox playground. In the real world, you have to step up and know the rules of the world that you live in. So if you 100 miles per hour down the street because you don't have the brain power to know there is a law that says the speed limit is 55 miles per hour then that is your fault.
But let's assume that these people have never heard of the words "copyright material".
What type of person thinks it is ethical and moral to copy and paste all of a signiticant portion of somebody's work post it own their website just to get more traffic to their own site?
Do you really have to be the Pope or a professor of ethics to know that is just plain wrong?
I have zero sympathy for these people.
When they were copying the article they have absolutely no shame in doing that.
It is wrong.
It is unethical.
It is immoral.
"What type of person thinks it is ethical and moral to copy and paste all of a signiticant portion of somebody's work post it own their website just to get more traffic to their own site?"
Everyone gets that it's illegal to violate the copyright laws. What you don't get is that in most cases it was done by those who didn't know the law as it applied to the Internet, and from all we've heard from Gibson and the RJ, the has been no financial harm done, with the exception of some subscription cancellations and pulled advertising as a result of those suits being filed.
Many of those being sued thought that because they were contributors to the articles it would be alright to post them.
Even the police let people off with warnings.
Sarge, you almost personsify what's wrong with the world today: You have no ability to see two sides of an issue and "negotiate" out a solution that might give to both sides.
As this seems to be a lot like trying to get the south the integrate schools in the 50s, though nowhere near as important, of course, it is futile to continue debate.
I think you have a thick skull.
Yes it is illegal.
But also by just using common sense it is unethical.
So even if it was legal if you are a decent person then you would not done it in the first place.
It is plain wrong to copy other people's work and put in on your own site to draw traffic to your site.
"Many of those being sued thought that because they were contributors to the articles it would be alright to post them."
I think you have a problem with the word "many".
Many does not equal 2.