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Tuesday, Feb. 8, 2011 | 2 p.m.
Website operators and commentators are expressing surprise and skepticism about the latest batch of copyright infringement lawsuits filed by Righthaven LLC of Las Vegas, all over the same Denver Post "enhanced TSA pat-down" photo.
At least eight more suits over the photo were filed in U.S. District Court for Colorado last week and Monday, lifting to at least 34 the number of suits Righthaven has filed over that photo since Dec. 8. Righthaven in its lawsuits typically demands $150,000 in damages and forfeiture of defendant website domain names.
Defendants sued over the photo include high-profile website operator Matt Drudge of the Drudge Report and white supremacist David Duke. Neither has answered the copyright infringement allegations against them.
In all, Righthaven has now filed at least 238 lawsuits since March over material from the Las Vegas Review-Journal and the Denver Post.
A problem with the TSA photo lawsuits, one law professor says, is that many of the website operators and message-board posters who posted the photo probably had no idea where it came from.
"What’s new – and troubling – with these latest lawsuits is that the people being sued may have had no idea that the photo they were using originated with the Denver Post. Since the photo went viral, it’s showed up in Google image search results disconnected from the Denver Post," Eric E. Johnson of the University of North Dakota School of Law wrote on his blog.
At Techdirt.com, commentator Mike Masnick wrote that one of the Righthaven TSA photo defendants, Pajamas Media, may have a strong fair use defense.
"This isn't a case of someone just grabbing a photo to illustrate a story. Instead, the opening paragraphs -- which clearly identify and link to the Denver Post as the source of the image -- are about how this image has 'become the symbol' of the 'Don't touch my junk' movement. It would seem that this gives Pajamas a really strong fair use claim, since the image was being used within a news report for commentary on the iconic nature of the image," Masnick said in his blog post.
The latest website operators and associated parties to be sued by Righthaven over the photo are:
--Hans von der Gruen, Jesse Mathewson and Western Front America, (westernfrontamerica.com)
--Matzoball Entertainment Online LLC and Michael Airington, (estergoldberg.com)
--Freedom Force Communications, The Say Anything Blog, Scott Hennen and Rob Port (sayanythingblog.com)
--UK-2 Ltd. and Airline Workers Unite (airlineworkersunite.com)
--Radio One Inc., Interactive One LLC and Sean Anthony, (ipowerrichmond.com)
--Baltic Enterprises LLC and StrangeCosmos.com(strangetravel.com)
--Raw Story Media Inc., John Byrne and Eric W. Dolan (rawstory.com)
--Ranker LLC and Ariel Kana (ranker.com)
Messages for comment were left with all the new defendants.
Here's what some of the recent defendants told the Las Vegas Sun after the Sun informed them they were being sued:
Airington at estergoldberg.com: "I am shocked at this lawsuit. The pic in question was part of a parody I had copied and pasted and credited back to the original publication (deadseriousnews.com). That had nothing to do with the Denver Post."
von der Gruen at westernfrontamerica.com: "Good grief. I had no idea. The photo is all over the web. All that the paper had to do was notify me and I would have removed it. I got it from a Google images search just as, no doubt, the hundreds of other sites using it did. This must be how the Post is making up for falling revenue due to declining readership. ... They should have put a copyright notice on the image if it was that big of a deal."
"I'm retired, live on about $12,000 a year (Social Security), own next to nothing and the site generates about $60 a month from the ads. So they can sue me all they want. If my site gets any publicity out of this, it can only be good for traffic," he said.
Justus Steel at thoushaltnotsteel.com: "I like to do Google searches for pictures that fit my blog and apparently I used one that they say was specifically theirs."
"In reality, this company called 'Righthaven' buys the rights to photos, and then sues everyone in the universe for using them. Unfortunately, in this day and age, these (with) too much time on their hands, too much money on their hands, corporate (expletive) can actually get away with this. Unbelievable.
"Want to know how many views the article I wrote received? 68. ... Guess how much money I made off that picture? None. I don't make any money doing this. I don't even have ads on my page," he said.
"Is it my picture? No. Should I have used it? No, apparently not. I'm pretty new to all this, been doing it for about four or five months now, but ignorance is no excuse. Nor do I want to be excused. I'm not arguing that I'm right in using the picture here. I'm saying if you let me know I'm doing something wrong, I would try to fix it. That's what's wrong with the world today. They couldn't just come to me and say 'Hey, you are probably new to all this stuff, but that's my picture, and I'd appreciate if you didn't use it.' No, they wouldn't do that, that would ruin the point of making money," he said.
Despite these complaints, Righthaven says its lawsuits are necessary to deter widespread online infringements of newspaper material and the Denver Post website includes a copyright notice explicitly warning "we will use all legal remedies available to address these infringements."
Righthaven watchers, in the meantime, are waiting for Nevada federal judges to issue what could be key rulings on fair-use defenses in older copyright infringement cases including those involving the Democratic Underground and the Center for Intercultural Organizing.
In four of the older cases, Righthaven faces counterclaims -- some charging its lawsuit campaign is an abuse of the copyright law and is aimed at coercing settlements since many of its lawsuits are settled for less than the cost to defend them.
"Righthaven uses the threat of statutory damages, domain name seizures and attorneys fees to extract low-value settlements from defendants," charges a counterclaim by the Pak.Org website.
Righthaven denies these allegations as does Stephens Media LLC, owner of the Review-Journal. An affiliate of Stephens Media is an investor in Righthaven.
I call for a boycott of the RJ. The sooner they go out of business, the sooner Righthaven falls. They are a prime example of what is wrong in this country.
I second that motion, a boycott would soothe the troubled souls of the victims, and put Righthaven where it belongs-in the sewers of Las Vegas. I quit my subscription a while ago when this crap started.
Although I agree with the posters above me and think that the RJ is being terrible, saying "It was on Google Image search and I didn't know it was copyrighted" is not a valid defense.
GIS is not a free for all image stock database, and the more bloggers that realize this the better.
A picture is only worth a thousand words... not $150K and your domain name. That rediculous Vdara Death Ray drawing was probably created by an intern... and if a pro did it.. it probably only cost $150-$300. I am starting to think they are actually baiting their web site with content they know people who are ignorant of copyright laws will use.
The RJ expects a take down notice when THEY infringe on someone's copyrights (see their copyright page). I would love to see someone sue THEM for lvrj.com when they infringe (and they DO).
Protecting copyrights does not give them the right to abuse the court system in the process. They call it "stealing" when their free content license is violated. All of this abuse and misuse of the NV courts is costing the state money it doesn't have... so they are really stealing money from the people of Nevada.
I hope everyone is having fun helping put Steve Gibson's kids through college by stealing from the people of Nevada.
I am a internet blogger who does nothing but firefighting and fire equipment posts. I also have posted many stories from the Las Vegas Sun and their pictures. All with the permission of the sun as long as I use the pictures from their staff photographers. Any picture from the Las Vegas Fire Department or the Clark County Fire Department I have to ask for permission to use separately.
About two to three weeks ago I emailed the Review Journal and asked for permission to use pictures as long as I credited it back to them, I even offered to pay a fee so that I could use the pictures, and I have not heard word one back from them over this issue.
So even though I was trying to do the right thing the RJ is not willing to work with anybody so as a result I have posted in the posting guidelines of my forum that Posting any content whether it falls into the fair use category from the RJ or The Denver Post is not allowed and any body caught posting from those two will be banned and their posts deleted. I don't want to sound like a jerk but I also don't want to get sued.
And as far as the RJ and Righthaven goes they can just drop dead. At least the Las Vegas Sun has a clue, at least they work with people and feel that if I post their pictures and articles with a full link back to their site is better than sitting there and not doing any thing. Thank you Las Vegas Sun for being willing to work with me, and by the way in my signature line for my forum and several other firefighting forums has a direct link to the Las Vegas Sun.
Dave... great post. You may also want to include ALL publications owned by Stephens Media. I dont want to give them any juice by posting them here but you can find them at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephens_Me...)
MJB
Chunky says:
Every time he reads or thinks about Righthaven he feels the need to go wash his hands and add extra sanitizer!
That's what Chunky thinks!
When you do a search on Google it says, "This image may be subject to copyright".
I wonder if you clowns know what that means.
There was a round of mass firings at the RJ a while back. One of the people demoted even hung up on a reporter trying to get details on the management shake-up. One person demoted to part time status was a person that had recent major medical issues. He was put on a special medical program called "Shermocare." It is very expensive to provide this kind of coverage and to make money in my opinion they have to sue a bunch of mom and pop Internet sites.
It is time to outlaw this type of lawsuit abuse in the State of Nevada, or at least cap damages at 75 cents, the price of a newspaper.
It is interesting that an RJ reporter posted on Facebook that he's going to start using YouTube to "drive users to the RJ website." At the end of the day, new management, new editors...none of it means anything at the RJ. From time to time it has a decent story, but overall, mediocre reporting and just a bad outlook on how to make money.
I think at some point this is all going to end very badly for both the paper and Righthaven. My guess would be that when a case finally goes to court and is tried with the judge not awarding much more than a few dollars. Righthaven and RJ have to be losing money this stuff so far.
The RJ published a picture of my daughter in a story about UNLV athletes spreading joy at a local hospital. I wrote them asking for a copy of the photo and permission to use it on my own sites. I have heard nothing back (and I have not linked to the story as a consequence.)
On the other hand, when a Sun photographer took pictures of me for a story he was more than happy to send me copies of photos he took of my dogs as well.
Does Righthaven pay taxes on their cash booty?
My guess is that RH pays zero taxes and uses the Nevada Court system, expenses paid by the taxpayer, to make easy money.
Righthaven and the Review Journal are good examples of Corporate Welfare, where taxpayer foots the bill to provide tax-free income to the corporation. These are the industries that will be attracted to Nevada - taxpayer pays, Corporation profits and the Governor gets re-election contributions.
Good luck on the economic recovery.
That is a good point, taxes. Usually lawsuit damages for a car wreck, etc. are not taxed.
I doubt the filing fees pay for the court costs.
If you can't do, sue. RCA was able to out litigate Philo T. Farnsworth and get the TV profits.
The joint marketing between a low-rated talk station (#20 in ratings) and the RJ is really rank. The worst of both worlds. Even though the editor and publisher, past and present, have gone on the hate station, I never heard the blowhard host in a Hawaiian shirt ask about the law suits. Of course, this host is known for pre-screening questions with guests, he did that with John Ensign when his skulduggery was uncovered.
You Americans would never allow anyone in a mall, sidewalk, or other public place to freely place others under duress in order to feel their breasts and genitals for any reason; you would immediately call on us at the government to remove that person. We have conditioned you to not only accept, but welcome that same sexual assault as long as it is carried out by us at the government. We have trained you to not only allow, but thank us as we take liberties with your bodies that many would consider offensive even to discuss, and you believe we do this for your own good.
In fact, according to our in house poll most of you invite the oppression. The "men" of America will even surrender their wives and daughters to be viewed naked or fondled by us as we see fit with little to no resistance. Consider this disloyal woman's paraphrased statement: "For a sane person in a sane country, the following statement should be true 'My freely chosen bedmates and doctors are the only ones allowed to see my naked body or touch my genitalia.'" Wrong. You people no longer have the right to such dignity and respect here in the USA. This woman might talk big and tough behind the internet, but I guarantee when we tell her to shut up and spread her legs, she'll fall right in line with the rest of you good little Americans. You people always do, it's the American way.
We are immune from any and all legal consequences and will not be deterred. If your child is damaged by our screening process, it is very likely because you poisoned your child's mind against the United States government. In such a case we may have your states Child Protective Services consider whether or not you are fit to be parents.
You had better start explaining to your children that we government employees are allowed to touch their private parts whenever we want; it will make the whole thing a lot less dramatic.
http://youareproperty.blogspot.com/2010/...
From what I have read about all of these law suits, it looks like legal extortion. I think everyone needs to file complaints with the Nevada bar association about Righthaven and the Righthaven attorneys. They are going after poor people, college students, elderly, handicapped and trying to extort money, getting copyrights after newspapers are asking people to share these, way after the photos are shared (and is now old news), then suing. This is also an attack on our freedom of speech, our bill of rights.