Conservative website among 3 sued over R-J copyrights (Free Republic sued AGAIN)

Las Vegas Sun ^ | Tuesday, July 20, 2010 | 9:12 a.m. | By Steve Green

[Lazamataz]

A conservative news-sharing website with plenty of experience in dealing with copyright issues has been sued for copyright infringement after Las Vegas Review-Journal stories allegedly were posted on its site.

Free Republic LLC, James C. Robinson and John Robinson, who are associated with the website www.freerepublic.com in Fresno, Calif., were sued in federal court in Las Vegas on Monday over the postings.

[aphid]

I disagree. It only gives the title and a link to their site. Try it with your Twitter or Facebook account and you’ll see.

[sickoflibs]

RE :”Calling itself “The Premier Conservative Site on the Net,” the Free Republic site includes links to dozens of newspapers, including the Las Vegas Sun, but not the Review-Journal.”

I dont see the Las Vegas Review-Journal on the copyright list. Am I misreading something? Check yourself :

Updated FR Excerpt and Link Only or Deny Posting List due to Copyright Complaints

[Eaker]

This article is the first I’ve seen of it.

Heck of a notification process!

[tutstar]

I agree

[Randy Larsen]

Thank You!

We will help!

[mnehring]

I’m not saying it doesn’t, but it also doesn’t spell out restrictions to average Joe Citizen on what else he puts. On Facebook, average Joe Citizen could then copy that article in the comment section and have no idea he is breaking the rules.

Plain and simple, it encourages sharing and doesn’t give guidance as to limitations of said sharing. It makes every single citizen who clicks on one of those share links as well as every site that it is shared to, at risk of litigation (ie shake-down) from this paper.

[rogue yam]

This article is the first I’ve seen of it.

Just goes to show, if you want to keep up with the latest you gotta surf FR!

[Scotsman]

Jim, I just caught this - sent a quick donation via PayPal.

Oh, and for those of you out there who are far beyond Jim's control, here's the tel#.

I'm very certain that the fine folks that answer that number would certainly like to here from you.

Las Vegas Review Journal
1111 W Bonanza Rd, Las Vegas, NV 89106 (702) 383-0211

[aphid]

Websites and blogs that specialize in the news/comment are a different category than a private citizen. They are supposed to know and comply with the rules of each source. FR is not Joe Citizen.

Argue all you want but FR will need to comply with new media (social network) rules as well. Hopefully, JR’s lawyer is conversant in the new media requirements.

[Scotsman]

errr, umm. “hear”. mmm

[unixfox]

This will only increase our membership.

Bitter sweet.

[mnehring]

Websites and blogs that specialize in the news/comment are a different category than a private citizen. They are supposed to know and comply with the rules of each source. FR is not Joe Citizen.

Right, but the website itself or the administration/owners of that site aren't the ones posting the material, users are.

Argue all you want but FR will need to comply with new media (social network) rules as well. Hopefully, JR’s lawyer is conversant in the new media requirements.

And in this case, FR has rulings to back up on, specifically litigations against YouTube for what user's posted on that site. Attempts to sue YouTube for what user's have posted fell flat and it was found that YouTube wasn't responsible for what users posted. The DMCA requires various levels of requests and warnings before a site is held liable for content posted on it. Jim has posted above he did not receive any take-down notices.

[antiRepublicrat]

It's surprising that the Supreme Court hasn't found the right case to set some specific guidelines with respect to what qualifies as "fair use".

Between Supreme Court decision and codified law, fair use has boiled down to

• Purpose and character of the use -- for-profit weighs against fair use; non-profit, educational, criticism, commentary, and parody weigh towards fair use
• Nature of the work -- vague area, involving public interest, whether the work was published, etc.
• Amount and substantiality -- Not only how much of the work you used, and how important a part of the larger work it was, but how much of new work it comprises
• Effect on the market for the work -- can people avoid buying the original because of your copying?

I'm not a copyright attorney, but I have read the laws, listened to the lawyers, and read the decisions. IMHO, we're good on the tests for excerpts. It's not for profit, it's only a small amount, enough to whet your appetite for the whole story, but also serving the minimum purpose to give an idea of what the article is about. Even better, it's for political commentary not only on the subject of the story, but often on the story itself. That gives us the criticism and commentary weights. Effect on market, for a small excerpt of a larger story, it's a teaser to get you to the site, probably actually helps them get more views.

In short, while fair use must always determined individually for each use, the excerpt policy makes it so that, overall, excerpts are likely to be covered under fair use.

But I doubt full article copies would be covered under fair use. We get killed on Amount and Effect on the market, since it's the whole article and it makes it so that we don't need to bother to go to the original site to read it, thus affecting the market.

But even for full article copies, FR should be under the DMCA safe harbor as long as they are deleted or truncated to excerpts upon a proper DMCA take-down notification (a huge percentage of those aren't proper, but that's a different story). However, the problem with all of this is that even if FR is completely within the law on everything, justice and fairness in the legal system costs $$$.

[unixfox]

Sounds like a newspaper in financial trouble attempting the “revenue through litigation” approach.

Like SCO suing IBM?

That worked out really well.

[mnehring]

Re previous, see:

Viacom v. YouTube
Field v. Google
ALS Scan v. Remarq

Specifically on the last one, the court rules “As to direct infringement, liability is ruled out for passive, automatic acts engaged in through a technological process initiated by another.”

[urtax$@work]

Well at least they are not calling FR a “blog” .

[tcrlaf]

“They’re trying to re-adjudicate a settled case.”

Unless DALIY KOS is on that list also, they are trying to bankrupt a center of Democrat cticism...

[aphid]

I’ll wait to see what the LVJR complaint is about instead of running down some hypothetical paths. Hopefully, nothing more than a nuisance.

[lysie]

Thanks. I was giving myself a headache trying to remember where I heard her name, too.

[My hearts in London - Everett]

It would seem they want link only. At least one of the articles found by a FReeper who googled it is an excerpt only post.