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Saturday, Sept. 25, 2010 | 2:05 a.m.
Sun archives
- 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)
- Righthaven judge: Review-Journal ‘implied license’ defense may have merit (9-20-2010)
- Defendants fight back against Righthaven copyright lawsuits (9-20-2010)
- Copyright lawsuit filed against group fighting Pahrump prison (9-15-2010)
- Righthaven settles 2 lawsuits over R-J story copyrights (9-13-2010)
- Another company fights back against copyright lawsuit (9-11-2010)
- Quick settlement reached in copyright lawsuit against PR company (9-10-2010)
- Texas woman emerges as vocal critic of copyright lawsuit firm (9-9-2010)
- Righthaven CEO defends company during roundtable discussion (9-9-2010)
- Copyright lawsuits filed against U.S. Marijuana Party, dating website (9-9-2010)
- Righthaven’s suit against Sharron Angle draws increased attention (9-8-2010)
- Defendant accuses Righthaven of misusing legal system (9-5-2010)
- Sharron Angle hit with R-J copyright infringement lawsuit (9-3-2010)
- Righthaven wins key ruling as new criticism leveled over suits (9-3-2010)
- Righthaven sues D.C.-based group over R-J editorial posting (9-2-2010)
- 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)
By allowing people to read its stories online for free, the Las Vegas Review-Journal is essentially giving away those stories, and recipients of the articles are free to display them on their own websites.
At least that’s the theory suggested by one of the latest group of lawyers to sign on to represent one of the website operators being sued for copyright infringement by the Review-Journal’s copyright enforcement partner, Righthaven LLC.
Righthaven is a Las Vegas company that through Friday had, since March, sued 136 website operators in federal court in Las Vegas. Righthaven detects online infringements of stories owned by Stephens Media LLC, obtains copyrights to those stories from Stephens Media and then sues over the retroactive alleged infringements.
Stephens Media, which owns the Review-Journal, has participated in the litigation by investing in Righthaven and providing the copyrights that are the basis of the lawsuits. The Review-Journal says the suits are necessary to stop widespread online infringements of its copyrights, though defense attorneys and critics say the lawsuits seem more about making money than protecting copyrights.
That’s because defendants are typically sued without having received requests to remove the infringing material and/or replace it with links — such requests or demands being the usual practice in the newspaper industry.
One of the Righthaven defendants, HerbalScience Ltd. and the Himalaya Drug Co., were accused in an August lawsuit of posting on a blogsite, www.fighthangover.blogspot.com, a June 5 Review-Journal story about Walgreens deciding to sell alcohol at its Las Vegas stores.
Himalaya says on its website it owns Himalaya Herbal Healthcare, with global headquarters in Bangalore, India, and a U.S. office in Houston.
HerbalScience and Himalaya are now represented in the litigation by Las Vegas attorneys Mark Borghese and Ryan Gile of the law firm Weide & Miller Ltd.; as well as Houston attorney John S. Egbert.
In their response, the attorneys offered several defenses that are similar to those seen in other Righthaven cases, such as fair use and that jurisdiction of the Nevada court isn’t proper because the defendants aren’t based in Nevada.
Righthaven in another lawsuit has overcome the jurisdictional argument in the case of an alleged out-of-state “willful infringer.” It’s unclear if HerbalScience and Himalaya would be considered “willful infringers.”
The HerbalScience/Himalaya attorneys also argued against Righthaven:
• “Plaintiff’s claims are barred because the statutory damages sought ($75,000) are unconstitutionally excessive and disproportionate to any actual damages that may have been sustained in violation of the (Constitution’s) Due Process Clause.”
• “Plaintiff has failed to use reasonable diligence and due care to mitigate damages, if any even exist, by its delay in bringing the claim to defendants’ attention. Moreover, plaintiff knew defendants would have likely removed the work (story) in haste and without the need for litigation upon receipt of a less-costly inquiry or cease and desist letter. Subsequently, plaintiff’s costs and fees in initiating this action are both needless and unreasonable.”
• “Plaintiff’s complaint is barred due to the doctrine of copyright misuse. Among other things, plaintiff is not seeking to protect its copyright rights or stop infringing activity. Plaintiff seeks to obtain money in excess of the fair and reasonable value of the claimed infringement and obtain compensation for its needless and unreasonable expenditure of legal and filing fees.”
But perhaps their most interesting defense is that Righthaven’s claims are barred under Section 109 of the copyright law covering “limitations on exclusive rights: effect of transfer of particular copy;” and “the doctrine of exhaustion.”
Borghese explained the theory is based on the fact that the source of the stories at issue in the lawsuits is a publicly available web page.
When a user visits a web page, the user’s browser downloads a copy of that web page.
“Thus, the Review-Journal has explicitly or implicitly authorized its website users to make a copy of the article,” Borghese said.
“Once a lawful copy of an article is obtained, any person in possession of such lawful copy may display or otherwise dispose of that copy without authorization of the copyright owner” under Section 109, he said.
He said the only exception is when a person obtained the copy through rental, lease, loan or a similar mechanism.
“There is nothing stated on the Review-Journal website that the website is renting or leasing its stories to its users,” Borghese said.
The Review-Journal website includes this note about use of its content: “All information, content, services and software displayed on, transmitted through, or used in connection with Stephens Media LLC., is owned or licensed by Stephens Media LLC., a Nevada limited liability company. You may use such content solely for personal, non-commercial use. If you operate a website and wish to link to Stephens Media LLC., you may do so provided you agree to delete the link upon request from us. No other use is permitted without prior written permission.”
(The Las Vegas Sun website’s terms of use are spelled out in its “reader agreement” at http://www.lasvegassun.com/about/useragreement/)
Righthaven has not yet responded to the Section 109 argument against it.
But in other cases, Righthaven attorneys have disputed claims that the Review-Journal provides an “implied license” for website users to display its material since the Review-Journal encourages the online sharing of its stories.
“While the works (stories) were certainly made freely available for viewing via the LVRJ website, the works were not made freely available in order to permit third parties to republish the works’ content for the third parties’ benefit,” Righthaven attorneys wrote in a court brief in another case this week. “An extension of the defendants’ logic would mean that anyone would be free to set up a competitive Internet news site, stock said site full of content published by the LVRJ, yet escape liability for infringement by claiming that the LVRJ permitted this infringing practice.”
Separately, Righthaven filed four more copyright infringement lawsuits on Friday. The latest defendants are:
• Michael Rucker, whom Righthaven says is the registrant of the website MNGunTalk.com. Four Review-Journal stories about Las Vegas police shooting and killing Erik Scott at a Costco on July 10 allegedly were posted on the website.
Court records indicate MNGunTalk user “tweener” posted four stories on the shooting with the note on one: “Saw this one on another forum...”
“Mr. Rucker did not institute any proactive policy of precluding, or attempting to preclude, the postings by others of copyright-infringing content on the website,” Righthaven alleged in the lawsuit, adding Rucker also failed to monitor for and promptly remove such postings.
• Rod Brooks and his website, iama911operator.org, where a Review-Journal story about a 911 call related to the Costco incident allegedly was posted.
The Review-Journal was credited on the two websites as the source of the Costco stories, records show.
• Barry Shermer and Don T. Bradshaw, whom Righthaven says are associated with the Bette Midler fan site www.bootlegbetty.com, where an Aug. 26 Review-Journal story mentioning the entertainer allegedly was posted. The Review-Journal was credited for the post, records show.
• Thomas Chandler, who has a radio show and a website called www.chandlerswatch.com. A July 13 Review-Journal story allegedly was posted there about an obituary in which the deceased urged voters not to re-elect Nevada Sen. Harry Reid. Records indicate the Review-Journal was credited for that post with a tagline.
As is its typical demand in recent suits, Righthaven seeks damages of $150,000 apiece in each of the new lawsuits as well as forfeiture of the defendants’ website domain names.
Requests for comment on the lawsuits were placed with the latest defendants.
Why is the RJ the only paper to sue for money and website control without an advance notice?
Wow - the Internet has no Inherent copyright protection? That's the best they could come up with? Weak.
Yes, James, that is what the lawyers are arguing that there is no such thing as copyright for either the LVRJ or the Sun or any website.
In fact, the Sun's own lawyers that represent them in trademark and copyright matters are now arguing in court and in news releases that websites like the LVRJ and the Sun have no copyright protection. I found that to be funny. Sadly, the Sun failed to mentioned that the law firm has represented them in trademark and copyright matters. They often failed to disclose conflicts of interest in their news stories. Extremely poor example of ethical journalism.
Clint, the music and movie industry have oftened sued for money without any advance notice.
Producers and distributors of porn have sued people who shared porn videos using Bittorent without any advance notice.
Book publishers sued Google without notice and received a $125 million settlement from Google.
What a lot of people don't know that if you send somebody a take-down notice and they are properly registered with the US Copyright office then they can actually filed a lawsuit against you if the take-down notice is not properfly filed or if the copyright infringement claim is in their eyes not true.
Much of what the above lawyers are arguing and in other Sun's stories basically have been already decided by the courts in other internet related cases to be not valid arguments.
They are just wasting the court's time.
The excessive statutory damages vs. actual damages as a Due Process violation is a new argument and it will be interesting on how the court will rule on that. They may rule and say that statutory damages can't be 10 times larger than the actual or something like that. They will not throw out the case. They would just reduce the damages.
To Clint Hoerner: That is because the RJ is petty. The RJ's main argument is over websites copy and pasting links. The link still takes you to RJ's website
Sure seems like the RJ is using a low class way to generate money.
I feel sorry for you CruJones because Green has written about 200 stories on this article so he has gotten so bored with it he can't give you the background for you to be properly informed on the cases.
Righthavens main argument has nothing to do with links.
They are suing people who have no ethics and who have copied and pasted all or significant part of intellectual property that they do not own.
So it is point less to post a link to a story if the reader is reading the whole or most of it on another website. Are readers that dumb that you expect them to clink on a link to re-read the same exact story again?
All these lawsuits would end if people just did the right thing.
Don't copy and paste all or a significant part of something you don't own.
You can post a link. You can post the headline. You can give post a paragraph or two but no more.
Don't steal.
End of story....be ethical.
"Stephens Media, which owns the Review-Journal, has participated in the litigation by investing in Righthaven and providing the copyrights that are the basis of the lawsuits."
Scumwads. These types of people are one of the major problems in this country, and maybe the #1 problem. Selfish, sneaky, greedy pigs who manipulate the so-called "justice" system to feed themselves. They should be locked up.
Please let us know everything about Righthaven and who invests in it and works for it. Business people who operate like this should be shunned. We should all know who they are.
Businesses like this are one of the reasons Nevada is the corrupt, poor, unappealing, uneducated mess it is.
Well it's about time that someone goes to court with this, once they post to story on the net it's worthless, they didn't sell it to anybody at that point and if they were afraid of the copy-rights on it the never should have given it away to start with! All news papers die in 10 hours after someone buys them, they become trash, or in my house a liner for the birds we have, so we don't have to deal with their droppings! Nice way of putting it!
Anybody that post a link to their story's should be getting paid for our links, they are making money of every hit you send them, with their advertisers paying for the hits they get! I want my cut of sending them business!
I didn't steal anything they wrote, sorry but the news papers are not like a book where the only way to can read it is to buy the book.
If they don't want anybody to read it for free, do the right thing, and take down their on-line paper. We would all be better off, the news papers were first put out to pass on news that was happening in a community. They were not started to sue readers, just goes to show you how things have deteriorated in this country, with some lawyers suing anybody they can!
If you want a good laugh read this story brought to you by the Sun-Sentinel;
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/broward...
I've been reading comments on these RH stories at the Sun for some time now and find them hilarious. Thought I would jump in and post my observations.
SgtRock posts reasoned, well thought responses with a good grasp of the legal system and copyright law. Most others act like petulant children who have had their favorite toy taken away.
I find Steve Greens articles amusing but less than profesional. His childish contempt for the LVRJ in this issue is evident, although he tries to hide it, in what amounts to nothing more than a Maceys/Gimbels rivalry. It's funny since what LVRJ is doing, public relations aside, will benefit the News industry, the Sun included. In effect the LVRJ is falling on their own PR knife for the sake of the entire industry while competitors in that same industry cackle at their plight and high five each other over the discomfort these lawsuits are generating.
Anyone who thinks Righthaven is in this for the money and making a killing while settling for piddly amounts of 3-5k are not reading the tea leaves...the cost of the action has to exceed this. Now maybe RH is only trying to feed paychecks in a tough economic environment or maybe they plan on some bigger payoffs down the road from larger targets, I don't know. But spreading 3-5k x100 or so over 2-5 years, after legal expenses, will hardly make the 3-5 lawyers handling this rich. If they're doing it for the money as some suggest, I just don't see it.
I'm not a lawyer, but I have some experience in online copyright lawsuits and issues. SgtRock's comments have been pretty spot on and he sure does take a lot of abuse from the peanut gallery.
Maybe I'll stick around and lend him some support.
"Well it's about time that someone goes to court with this, once they post to story on the net it's worthless, they didn't sell it to anybody at that point and if they were afraid of the copy-rights on it the never should have given it away to start with!"
They didn't give it away any more than TV Networks give away their programs when they are played TV. It is a cashless barter system, you get the news or entertainment in exchange for being exposed to the ads of their advertisers who in effect are paying your admission fees by proxy in the hopes you buy their wares.
The posting of their full text property without the benefit of them receiving advertising payments from their sponsors suberts a system that has worked well for all involved, including customers, for hundreds of years.
"All news papers die in 10 hours after someone buys them, they become trash, or in my house a liner for the birds we have, so we don't have to deal with their droppings! Nice way of putting it!"
Baloney, while interest in news articles is highest the 48 hours after publication revenue continues to be derived for months or years after as people who haven't read it go to the website or click on links that take them to their archives. All you proven by your comment is the value of that piece is greatly reduced for an individual once they read it. I agree with that but it seems rather obvious to the casual observer.
BTW - How do you line your bird cage with electronic news articles?
"Anybody that post a link to their story's should be getting paid for our links, they are making money of every hit you send them, with their advertisers paying for the hits they get! I want my cut of sending them business!"
Well then call them up and negotiate a contract for such services. The entire Google Adwords universe is based on just such a system.
"I didn't steal anything they wrote, sorry but the news papers are not like a book where the only way to can read it is to buy the book."
If you cut and pasted the entire article on your own personal website, you stole their property. It doesn't matter if you provided a link or credit, once you copied the entire thing it was rendered worthless to the copyright holder in terms of generating revenue. All these copyright holders are working on a concept called "running a business".
As for your comment that the only way to read a book is to buy the paper version, my Kindle would disagree.
"If they don't want anybody to read it for free, do the right thing, and take down their on-line paper."
Again, once you go to their website it generates advertising revenue which helps pays the costs of providing that article to you. It's free in terms of you not pullng out your wallet and handing them money right then but your visit generates a monetary consideration to them that takes the place of an immediate exchange of cash.
That this has to be explained in the 21st century answers my question of why we sometimes get the
political leaders we do.
"We would all be better off, the news papers were first put out to pass on news that was happening in a community."
Huh?
"They were not started to sue readers, just goes to show you how things have deteriorated in this country, with some lawyers suing anybody they can!"
Of course they were not started to sue readers, they were started to generate a profit for their owners. Stealing their intellectual property however has an effect on that same profit and they need and have the right to protect their financial interests.
Unless you don't believe in private property rights.
Not one of the better defenses that I have seen an attorney come up with.
Everything on the Internet is copyrighted unless stated by the copyright holder that he is releasing it into public domain.
All local businesses in Las Vegas should pull their advertising from the RJ in protest of this shakedown.
Meet a Lewis & Roca partner for Greenspun Media, owner of the Sun, and his cases:
http://www.lrlaw.com/mccue/
In response to FCCfirstclass, see
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/Headli...
or
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/arti...
"Court records indicate MNGunTalk user "tweener" posted four stories on the shooting with the note on one: "Saw this one on another forum...""
Interesting. I see posts with information from other sites on the RJ site all the time. Maybe those sites should turn around and sue the RJ under the same premis.
Lol..the RVJ on their own front page of their website promotes usage of "Facebook" and "Tweeter" so what they heck is really going on here?
I have a great idea..lets start a website for our business online and ask people to come to our website and then ask them to share our website on their facebook page so perhaps their friends will see us and share as well so we can have a great advertising value for our business...but..we will trick them, so we will actually make money from suing them for using our material that we encouraged them to use.
LOL! Really!
Fan and soloeforsenate, the Sun should apologize for you. Mr. Green has written about 200 stories on the topic. He is now bored with it so he gets lazy and does not give people like you the background material needed to make informed decisions.
One can post on Facebook and Tweeter and any other website the link back to the story, the headline, a description of the story and even one or two parapgraphs. All that is fair use and nobody will get sued.
One can't copy and paste all or a significant part of the story. That is not fair use.
Also, there is a difference between a casual user of a website and if the owner or staff person posts copyright material. If the owner or staff person copies and pastes then the website owner can always get sued.
Howerver, if the website owner registers his/her site with the US Copyright Office and follows some other rules then they can create a Safe Harbor. That requires somebody to send them a take-down notice.
The LVRJ has created a Safe Harbor. Facebook and Tweeter has created Safe Harbors.
If one is small website and they don't want to create Safe Harbor then they should either pre-screen posts or everyday look at them. That is what I did and it was no big deal to that.
Now you can educated decisions and not be tricked into looking foolish by lazy reporters who are having to report the same story over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.
The R-J has effectively set a trap. Knowing that it has long been common practice to repost articles with attribution, the R-J authorized its mercenary Righthaven to sue without warning or prior request. Acting fairly would have obviated all of these lawsuits and the phony claims for money. The defending lawyers might also try the "unclean hands" defense. In the event that there is any merit to any of the copyright claims, this is just too dirty to warrant awards of disproportionate sums of money from people who have acted with no intent to do any harm to, or compete with, the R-J in any fashion, and who, in fact, have done no harm to the R-J, but have only given it flattery it does not deserve.
"The R-J has effectively set a trap. Knowing that it has long been common practice to repost articles with attribution, the R-J authorized its mercenary Righthaven to sue without warning or prior request."
I guess you could apply that logic to all unethical and illegal behavior.
Shoplifting is a common practice. So the convenience stores are laying a trap when ever they put any merchandise on display. They could choose not display. They could choose to send a letter to the shoplifter to return the goods. All that is silly.
" from people who have acted with no intent to do any harm to"
Are you taking about the people who have zero ethics? You know the ones who believe it is OK to take their mouse, highlight a story in which they did not pay the writer to write, copy the story, paste on it own site so that people would come to their site.
Oh....those people...those nice and warm and fuzzy people who steal other people's work.
Oh how nice of them......
From what I've seen the claims of defense attorneys are either non-existent, have negative precedents or are thin at best. IMO these sharks are fleecing their clients with false visions of success and David vs. Goliath scenarios.
It's possible they may frame the argument just right, sit in front of just the right judge with the right frame of mind at the right time and win a lesser argument. But it will probably be turned over on appeal...after the attoreys have collected tens of thousands of additional legal fees.
The smart ones settled quickly and moved on.
Nah, the smart ones countersue. People shouldnt give into terroristic threats. They know thell lose in court and are just looking for a quick settlement. WrongHaven is just looking to make money, like the RIAA and MPAA before them. They never cared about artists, just about keeping the money for themselves-- which is why so many artists dissassociated from those organizations and started delivering content straight to P2P. What the shortsighted corporate types will never understand is that free distribution of material actually encourages those who like the material to buy it. When the lawsuits became outlandish, the Electronic Frontier Foundation stepped in and countersued. Some of these lawsuits were ridiculous, suing people who were dead, suing a person who lives in a homeless shelter who didnt even have access to a computer. Sorry, but these corporate types need to learn their lesson.
Wanna know what this really is all about and what they do with the money once they get it? Read the following.... I hope someone does this to Wronghaven, Im sure it would be widely acclaimed, even in government circles....
http://www.hellmail.co.uk/postalnews/tem...
Its good to see the lawyers themselves being investigated for being copyright trolls :)
I wouldnt trust anyone who supported Wronghaven either...
Nah, the smart ones countersue. People shouldnt give into terroristic threats. They know thell lose in court and are just looking for a quick settlement. WrongHaven is just looking to make money, like the RIAA and MPAA before them. They never cared about artists, just about keeping the money for themselves-- which is why so many artists dissassociated from those organizations and started delivering content straight to P2P. Finally, they learned that lawsuits just dont work so they quit. What the shortsighted corporate types will never understand is that free distribution of material actually encourages those who like the material to buy it. When the lawsuits became outlandish, the Electronic Frontier Foundation stepped in and countersued. Some of these lawsuits were ridiculous, suing people who were dead, suing a person who lives in a homeless shelter who didnt even have access to a computer. Sorry, but these corporate types need to learn their lesson.
Wanna know what this really is all about and what they do with the money once they get it? Read the following.... I hope someone does this to Wronghaven, Im sure it would be widely acclaimed, even in government circles....
http://www.hellmail.co.uk/postalnews/tem...
Its good to see the lawyers themselves being investigated for being copyright trolls :)
As others are doing, I encourage everyone to completely avoid anything done by Stephens Media. Let's boycott them out of business! Just like the RIAA and MPAA learned that copying for personal use was here to stay, just like with VCR taping of TV shows (a famous court case) IF these people are going to threaten us, we will drive them out of business by not supporting them. I hadnt even heard of this filthy rag before this, but now that I have, the EEF will make sure they dont go unpunished with the class action lawsuit against WrongMedia and Gibson that many have already joined..... WrongHaven is a company of 10 people created expressly for the purpose of googling 24/7 to find people to harass. They violate the spirit of US Copyright Laws by their dirty behavior (as mainstream media and lawyers have noted) and they deserve to be taken down, along with Gibson.