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.

[Natural Born 54]

And to add more paranoid thoughts, how about this modus operandi as a sneaky bailout for the media for all their assistance to the administration? And to create stronger ties between them in the future? And finally to help them silence their competition? Nothing like killing a bunch of birds with one stone.

[BuckeyeTexan]

You’re re-instated!. Right on. Welcome back, FRiend.

[TexasFreeper2009]

Just block ALL content from that website, surely there is a way.

[DoorGunner]

barratry

n. creating legal business by stirring up disputes and quarrels, generally for the benefit of the lawyer who sees fees in the matter. Barratry is illegal in all states and subject to criminal punishment and/or discipline by the state bar, but there must be a showing that the resulting lawsuit was totally groundless. There is a lot of border-line barratry in which attorneys, in the name of being tough or protecting the client, fail to seek avenues for settlement of disputes or will not tell the client he/she has no legitimate claim.

http://dictionary.law.com/Default.aspx?selected=40

[ken in texas]

This will only increase our membership.

Perhaps... and it would be even better if they all chipped in a little to help pay to keep the site running.

[Las Vegas Dave]

Pinging...!

[jmaroneps37]

Hang in Jim. Prayers up.

[Michael Barnes]

FUHR

FULVJR

[Natural Born 54]

Thanks. ‘Tis good to be back.

[Bob J]

Deja vu all over again. Some people just don’t learn the lesson.

[Hillarys Gate Cult]

IIRC full articles can be posted under fair use. But Jim Rob would have to go to court to defend every one and spend most of his time there even though the law is on his side. That started the do not not post list and excerpt only on most sites. It's worked well until now. I do remember some sites coming after us but letting DUmmieland and other lefty sites still post full articles. Problem for a website is that if they do ban hot linking and short excerpts they would also have to do that to every search engine. That would be web suicide.

[mojitojoe]

YES!!! Think about it.... if every FR member sent just a few bucks, it would be an enormous help. I know money is tight right now for many but heck, if everyone sent 1.00 the total would probably cover it. Those that can send more, send whatever they can to help.

[antiRepublicrat]

The large number of suits indicate that the suits are being filed without any DMCA take-down notification. The suit itself is the notification.

I wonder whether the DMCA preempts suits. IOW, do you have to send a takedown notice before you can file suit over a specific infringement? Section 512(c)(1) of the DMCA says

(1) IN GENERAL- A service provider shall not be liable for monetary relief, or, except as provided in subsection (j), for injunctive or other equitable relief, for infringement of copyright by reason of the storage at the direction of a user of material that resides on a system or network controlled or operated by or for the service provider, if the service provider--

(A)(i) does not have actual knowledge that the material or an activity using the material on the system or network is infringing;

(ii) in the absence of such actual knowledge, is not aware of facts or circumstances from which infringing activity is apparent; or

(iii) upon obtaining such knowledge or awareness, acts expeditiously to remove, or disable access to, the material;

(B) does not receive a financial benefit directly attributable to the infringing activity, in a case in which the service provider has the right and ability to control such activity; and

(C) upon notification of claimed infringement as described in paragraph (3), responds expeditiously to remove, or disable access to, the material that is claimed to be infringing or to be the subject of infringing activity.

Free Republic is absolutely shielded under this. I see nothing preventing the filing of a suit, but guess is that this makes for very good summary judgment material for any suit filed. As far as that subsection (j) part, a judge can at most issue an injunction forcing FR to disable the account of the person posting the material.

The suit itself is the notification.

DMCA notification has to take a very specific form under 512(c)(3).

[P-Marlowe]

Did they sue DU too?

I think they assume that nobody over there can read.

[Hillarys Gate Cult]

Thanks for giving me my yearly trip to the LAT. That reporter could have looked at the LAT FR case but either was too lazy or it didn’t fit his slant on the story, even though it’s an good illustration on the whole subject.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

"The latest suits bring to 75 the number of copyright infringement lawsuits filed since March by Righthaven."

The story saves the real agenda for the last line.

[Brytani]

Grumble.

Every time I try to get away from this site, something brings me back. This time some loyalty!!

Ok Jim, an above and beyond out monthly donation coming your way - take these rat-bastards down!!!

[Billthedrill]

They need to sue Jim Thompson...

No. No, no, no! Do NOT (shudders) bring Jim Thompson into this! You remember how Genghis Khan took Baghdad and left 25,000 severed heads at the gate in a pile? They only blamed ol' Genghis. Jim Thompson got there first.

Before Chuck Norris kicks butt on a raving, drunk, drugged-up gang of outlaw bikers, he makes a phone call asking permission. Yup. Jim Thompson.

[antiRepublicrat]

IIRC full articles can be posted under fair use. But Jim Rob would have to go to court to defend every one and spend most of his time there even though the law is on his side

I did some digging and found FR's previous fair use arguments for full articles didn't fly in court. Of course fair use is determined on a per-article basis, but a safe bet would be to assume none of them are fair use in this case. But even for full articles, they seem to have been effectively covered under pre-DMCA law -- the DMCA was new back then.

Under the DMCA, and using the YouTube precedent, the procedure should be that FR has no off-limits publications, and those publications must send a properly-formed DMCA takedown notice whenever one of their articles is posted in a way that they view is infringing. The DMCA addressed the issue of site owners having to be the content police by specifically stating that they are NOT. The YouTube decision reinforced this. The copyright holders must be the content police, with the site owners only complying with lawful takedown requests.

I do remember some sites coming after us but letting DUmmieland and other lefty sites still post full articles.

Copyright does allow for selective enforcement.

[Rebelbase]

Sleazy approach to increasing revenue. Hire some people to post your newspaper’s articles on websites, then sue those websites for copyright infringement.