Website operators use new defenses to fight R-J copyright suits

Las Vegas Sun ^ | Wednesday, Aug. 18, 2010 | 10:50 a.m. | By Steve Green

[SunkenCiv]

Righthaven LLC, has sued 98 North American websites and blogsites in federal court in Las Vegas since March -- typically demanding $75,000 in damages and forfeiture of the defendants' website domain names.

This wouldn't be any trouble at all if ['Civ keeps his ideas to himself].

[kcvl]

Newspaper Chain’s New Business Plan: Copyright Suits
By David Kravets July 22, 2010

The Courts, intellectual property Steve Gibson has a plan to save the media world’s financial crisis — and it’s not the iPad.

Borrowing a page from patent trolls, the CEO of fledgling Las Vegas-based Righthaven has begun buying out the copyrights to newspaper content for the sole purpose of suing blogs and websites that re-post those articles without permission. And he says he’s making money.

“We believe it’s the best solution out there,” Gibson says. “Media companies’ assets are very much their copyrights. These companies need to understand and appreciate that those assets have value more than merely the present advertising revenues.”

http://tinyurl.com/2fu3wvy

Gibson’s vision is to monetize news content on the backend, by scouring the internet for infringing copies of his client’s articles, then suing and relying on the harsh penalties in the Copyright Act — up to $150,000 for a single infringement — to compel quick settlements. Since Righthaven’s formation in March, the company has filed at least 80 federal lawsuits against website operators and individual bloggers who’ve re-posted articles from the Las Vegas Review-Journal, his first client.

Now he’s talking expansion. The Review-Journal’s publisher, Stephens Media in Las Vegas, runs over 70 other newspapers in nine states, and Gibson says he already has an agreement to expand his practice to cover those properties. (Stephens Media declined comment, and referred inquiries to Gibson.) Hundreds of lawsuits, he says, are already in the works by year’s end. “We perceive there to be millions, if not billions, of infringements out there,” he says.

[Jean S]

“We perceive there to be millions, if not billions, of infringements out there,” he says.

This could get ugly, they've already settled out of court with a few small bloggers.

[TrueRightWing]

Quote no more than 50% of the source material, and include your own commentary *interspersed within* the the text. Don’t quote the text and THEN have your commentary. Quote a paragraph, then your comments, another paragraph or two, then more comments, etc.

That looks like it would require some changes to this site's setup....

[AppyPappy]

“Quote no more than 50% of the source material, “

Copyright restrictions are set by the holder. The Onion won’t even let us post a link.

[Constitutionalist Conservative]

The Onion won’t even let us post a link.

Can they legally prohibit that?

Seems like a pretty brilliant way to keep traffic away from your website.

[Constitutionalist Conservative]

I’ll bet that Facebook has a lot of LVRJ article excerpts posted (via their Link feature). Let’s see Righthaven try to sue them.

[Constitutionalist Conservative]

Righthaven and the R-J, however, have argued the lawsuits are necessary to stop theft of the R-J's copyrighted material and that it would be impractical to contact all the alleged infringers to request they stop infringing.

But it's not impractical to file federal lawsuits against them, hun?

[LomanBill]

"When it sues its own consumer, and will even sue its content’s interviewee who has re-posted (a story involving himself), a dysfunction arises," she wrote."

 

 

What's next - suing anybody who talks about "their" news in public without the consent of the Apparatchik?   Maybe writing an entire NewSpeak(tm) dictionary and then suing anybody who writes the words therein upon the wall?

 

The 1st amendment has always been a thorn in our would-be owner's side.....

 

A dysfunction?

"COMMERCE BETWEEN MASTER AND SLAVE IS DESPOTISM"

---Thomas Jefferson.

Yep.

 

 

[dbwz]

“We perceive there to be millions, if not billions, of infringements out there,” he says.

Oh, to be a fly on the wall at the inception of this scam. I bet Mr. Gibson had to damn near go to the hospital hyperventilating and fibrillating over the potential millions and billions rolling in. It's almost certain he had to change his skivvies.

[Marty62]

What Exactly is LVRJ claiming as a CE against FR? Do you have a link?

[Monkey Face]

This is Las Vegas. Who can really be surprised at the corruption here?

[LomanBill]

>>Sites of all types are being targeted.

 

Of course ALL types are being targeted.

 

The dialectic Porcine puppets in the Farm House wouldn't have it any other way.... lest the sheeple read the writing on the wall....

 

 

"I HAVE SWORN UPON THE ALTAR OF GOD ETERNAL HOSTILITY TO EVERY FORM OF TYRANNY OVER THE MIND OF MAN"
--Thomas Jefferson

 

After all, if the sheeple are allowed to think and speak for themselves without guidance from the Vanguard Elite, Jones might come back ... and we wouldn't want that now would we comrades? 

 

So quiet down now - because the other animals can't hear who's winning American Idol between Viagra/Soma commercials...