Posted on 07/20/2010 11:52:30 AM PDT by 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.
(Excerpt) Read more at lasvegassun.com ...
All well and good.
However, Internet Copyright is now defined and articulated in the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act. This act, while passed in the US under this name, is recognized in many other countries by other names.
Title II specifies that a reproducer of copyrighted material is protected in certain ways, to wit:
Title II: Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act
DMCA Title II, the Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act ("OCILLA"), creates a safe harbor for online service providers (OSPs, including ISPs) against copyright liability if they adhere to and qualify for certain prescribed safe harbor guidelines and promptly block access to allegedly infringing material (or remove such material from their systems) if they receive a notification claiming infringement from a copyright holder or the copyright holder's agent. OCILLA also includes a counternotification provision that offers OSPs a safe harbor from liability to their users upon notice from such users claiming that the material in question is not, in fact, infringing. OCILLA also provides for subpoenas to OSPs to provide their users' identity.
Free Republic's 2000 lawsuit was an attempt to challenge the requirement to cease and desist from presenting material AFTER the takedown notice.
But the law clearly requires a takedown notice.
I defy these hucksters to produce same.
But that doesn't appear to be the case here. It looks like he is up against some copyright ambulance chasers and a mea culpa won't save him.
The sad fact is FReepers will end up paying the bill when it should never have come to this. After the LAT lawsuit each and every non FR generated article should have been excerpted and linked if anything for liability sake. Setting up a system where you “use” a copyright holders work and stop only when demanded is going to work against Jim due to his previous legal history. The court is going to determine that he should have known better. IMO.
I don't read it the same way, at all.
Guess the lawyers will educate us.
In fact, there is not one word about intent. Not one word.
Great idea. I’m in!
Jim, if they follow through on this threat post it on top of our home page. We’ll all dig deep. FR IS OUR ROCK!!
It should be noted that on EVERY article on every page at the Las Vegas Review Journal, they have links at the bottom to share the story on Facebook, Twitter, etc.
That's not sharing the entire article though. It's impossible to do that through their sharing link that they provide for Facebook. If you try it, you'll see that nothing more than about maybe 50 words or so come through on the sharing. Sometimes, in a long paragraph, you don't even get just the "one" paragraph.
So, this is not what they are talking about. It would appear to me that they are talking about sharing the entire article, and a lot of newspapers (on our excerpt list here) don't want that done.
Facebook automatically clips everything you send in through that method (i.e., a "Facebook button" on the webpage of the news agency) so that's why they don't care about that.
It’s not unusual for a lawsuit to be announced when it is filed, and thus, it has not even gotten to the legal notification stage. One thing (the news report) is for public news - and the other thing (the lawsuit itself) will go through the legal notification.
There’s no problem here ... as they are each in two different areas ...
On Facebook, average Joe Citizen could then copy that article in the comment section and have no idea he is breaking the rules.
There are TOS on Facebook and they make it clear that you're not to violate copyright laws. Now, if you try to and you get caught - they don't "talk" to you at Facebook -- you just don't have an account any more -- IMMEDIATELY -- end of story ... :-)
Sorry, you’ve got that wrong. I followed that a little while back and actually saw the thread where that guy who was kicked off BurstNET’s service was whining about his troubles.
That wasn’t law enforcement shutting anyone down - that was the guy’s service provider (BurstNET) shutting him down on their own because he had constantly received violation notices from them before and now - he was carrying bomb-making pages from al Qaida on his website and they finally “had it” with him and shut him down ... LOL ...
It was his service provider that did that, and they put out a press release stating that very thing ... that it was solely them that did it.
Thanks for the ping S.T.
They’ll use every trick to try to shut us down.
Conversation ends when you start with insults. I have no time for it.
I am talking about 73,000 blogs. Not one. Did this guy own all of them?
Hey, I didn't start with insults. I ended with an insult.
And that was only after I repeatedly tried to get you to recognize that your assertion was just flat wrong. Even your own citations had been updated with corrections that contradicted you -- had you bothered to actually read them.
I have no time for it.
Don't let the door hit you in the butt, Oaf.
Paranoid totalitarians.
Paranoid totalitarians.
I wouldn’t be surprised if shadow Liberal money is doing this to FR.
So you are saying all 73,000 of the blogs were shut down due to bomb making information?
By the way, if you were the only one here I would leave. Count on it.
The entire website was shut down by the hosting service. It could have been 1 blog or 1,000,000 blogs.
I explained it before, but I'll explain it again: The hosting service had no ability to shut down individual blogs. Only the blog operator could do that. But, the FBI went to the hosting service -- since they were responsible for operating the servers. And the hosting service chose to act with the only granularity of control they had: shut down the entire website.
Was it heavy-handed? Maybe. But, they did it voluntarily. The FBI didn't demand they do so, despite an initial erroneous claim to the contrary.
By the way, if you were the only one here I would leave. Count on it.
Is that a promise? This would be a better place without you -- there would be one less person that would cause newcomers to wonder: "What kind of conspiracy wingnuts hang out here?"
I could say the same thing about hotheads. Most here discuss. You insult and go into rage when you disagree. No, I won’t leave because of you. I haven’t left because of hte trolls so why because of you?
What I said is something that can be happening. There is more evidence that obama’s administration wants to stop free speech online.
Conspiracies of the Obama administration have been proven to be true more than they have not. Plus posting and linking things going on opens up conversation about whether it is valid or not.
What I posted to you is if feds can send a letter and scare enough people to shut down blogs then it may be a problem. I stand by what I posted. It was a alert. Be on the lookout. You decided to insult.
Have a nice day!
Go into rage? That's funny! (Excuse me while I wipe the tears of laughter away)
No, I won’t leave because of you. I haven’t left because of hte trolls so why because of you?
Darn, there goes my FRPSA (Free Republic Public Service Award).
What I said is something that can be happening. There is more evidence that obama’s administration wants to stop free speech online.
Anything could be happening. But, your evidence will have to be much better than this.
Conspiracies of the Obama administration have been proven to be true more than they have not.
I haven't been keeping score, so I can't tell you whether your assertion is true or not. But, apparently you have. Perhaps you would like to provide an itemization?
Plus posting and linking things going on opens up conversation about whether it is valid or not.
I agree about starting a conversation. But, you shouldn't get your panties in a twist when someone points out that your "evidence" is flawed, outdated, or just flat wrong. I guess that's when I "went into rage".... when I dared to point out the flaws in your evidence?
What I posted to you is if feds can send a letter and scare enough people to shut down blogs then it may be a problem.
In the real world, when a business finds that their service is being used to commit a crime, they usually act quickly and unilaterally so they can't later be accused of aiding or abetting -- either in criminal or civil court. If you are willing to take a stand and potentially watch everything you worked for be washed down the drain, I applaud you for for your principles. But, don't be surprised when others are more concerned about their financial future.
I stand by what I posted. It was a alert. Be on the lookout. You decided to insult.
I made a rather lame joke at your expense. The fact that you took it as an insult says volumes more about you than I ever could.
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