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Righthaven copyright lawsuit threat leads Sean Harrington to unplug KnowYourCourts.com
Denver Westword ^ | Mar. 3, 2011 | Michael Roberts

Posted on 03/04/2011 8:22:45 AM PST by george76

Copyright lawsuits filed by Nevada's Righthaven LLC on behalf of the Denver Post against chronically ill, autistic blogger Brian Hill and others have thrown a scare into plenty of local website operators. Like the man behind Rocky Mountain Right, Sean Harrington, overseer of KnowYourCourts.com, which features court documents that could contain Post materials, has chosen to pull his site offline temporarily rather than risk litigation.

...

Righthaven, which obtains the rights to Post material before suing, typically asks for an allegedly offending party's Internet domain and a cash payment to prevent the case from preceding to court. According to Hill's attorney, a Righthaven lawyer threatened to garnish the twenty-year-old's disability payments if he didn't pony up $6,000 to make the problem go away -- an amount far beyond his means. Hill's website, uswgo.com, has also suspended operations.

...

Harrington suggests in an article for the Minnesota State Bar Association's website that Righthaven's methodology may commit two obscure legal sins: champetry, which he defines as "an improper arrangement where a party with no interest in a lawsuit agrees to finance and bear the expense of litigation in exchange for a portion of the proceeds," and barratry, or "creating legal business by stirring up disputes and quarrels, generally for the benefit of the lawyer who sees fees in the matter."

(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.westword.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Extended News; News/Current Events; US: Colorado; US: Minnesota; US: Nevada
KEYWORDS: barratry; champetry; righthaven

1 posted on 03/04/2011 8:22:51 AM PST by george76
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To: george76

These guys are the Westboro Baptist Church of copyright, pushing a fundamentally fair system to the edge of its logical boundaries.


2 posted on 03/04/2011 8:30:03 AM PST by Dan Nunn (Support the NRA!)
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To: george76
According to Hill's attorney, a Righthaven lawyer threatened to garnish the twenty-year-old's disability payments if he didn't pony up $6,000 to make the problem go away

Disability payments are almost always exempt from garnishment.

3 posted on 03/04/2011 8:37:09 AM PST by vbmoneyspender
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To: george76

Doesn’t Champetry also have a penalty of drawing and quartering? Like that doesn’t happen all that often where someone gets caught. Bet Righthaven’s lawyers didn’t look that one up before getting into this deal eh!


4 posted on 03/04/2011 8:44:24 AM PST by muawiyah (Make America Safe For Americans)
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To: vbmoneyspender

Lots of things the Righthaven lawyers don’t know. Bet there’s some law somewhere that protects crippled kids from lawyers.


5 posted on 03/04/2011 8:46:07 AM PST by muawiyah (Make America Safe For Americans)
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To: Dan Nunn
re: These guys are the Westboro Baptist Church of copyright

I was just thinking the same thing. Both are utterly disgusting!

6 posted on 03/04/2011 9:03:50 AM PST by Nevadan
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To: george76

Some hacker somewhere “hypothetically” needs to take these people’s computers out permanently, or so damage them these shyster imbeciles are financially ruined.

“The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.”
-William Shakespeare, “Henry VI Part II”


7 posted on 03/04/2011 9:07:22 AM PST by Emperor Palpatine (Tosca, mi fai dimenticare Iddio!!!)
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To: george76; All

Question: I manage many blogs. Is it safe to merely avoid the Denver Post and Las Vegas Journal Review? Or do they represent other media outlets as well? Is there a set of guidelines that, if followed, can inoculate you from this threat? Thanks.


8 posted on 03/04/2011 9:56:40 AM PST by montag813
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To: montag813

Not sure : maybe talk with your lawyer ?


9 posted on 03/04/2011 10:30:42 AM PST by george76 (Ward Churchill : Fake Indian, Fake Scholarship, and Fake Art)
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To: montag813

They represent an army of small papers/publications as well. Best to do some research.


10 posted on 03/04/2011 10:47:14 AM PST by catbertz
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To: catbertz; montag813

Just look up all the RIGHTHAVEN threads on FR. One of them has all the cross references to who to not bother with.


11 posted on 03/04/2011 11:07:58 AM PST by muawiyah (Make America Safe For Americans)
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To: Dan Nunn
These guys are the Westboro Baptist Church of copyright, pushing a fundamentally fair system to beyond the edge of its logical boundaries.

Hang 'em all.

12 posted on 03/04/2011 6:03:02 PM PST by HKMk23 (It won't be "Justice" until wicked people fry.)
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To: montag813

What ya gotta do is trick these bastards into getting crossways with Al Jazeera; leave the rest to the jihadis.


13 posted on 03/04/2011 6:04:47 PM PST by HKMk23 (It won't be "Justice" until wicked people fry.)
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To: montag813

http://righthavenvictims.blogspot.com/p/avoid-righthaven-lawsuit.html

Last I looked RightHaven represents 100 or so publications


14 posted on 03/04/2011 6:10:42 PM PST by dennisw ( The early bird catches the worm)
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To: montag813

“Or do they represent other media outlets as well?”

I’ve been following this, and the danger is VERY real. Click on the ‘righthaven’ tag and you’ll find dozens and dozens of threads for the past year.

In short, it isn’t just those two papers. It includes the parent companies of those papers and all their newspaper properties. The one based in Arkansas has about 20 papers, and an article from any of them can get you sued. And other newspaper consortiums are negotiating with these people, and lawsuits could proceed with NO advance warning. Essentially, there is no safe newspaper to quote from.

I will be starting my own forum in about 3 months, and I will be prohibiting ALL quoting from any newspaper source. I heard that one blogger was sued for as little as a quote of four sentences, so there is no safe minimum size of quote.

Here are some links to read up about this.

* http://righthavenvictims.blogspot.com
* http://www.righthavenlawsuits.com
* http://www.facebook.com/pages/stop-the-LVRJRIGHTHAVEN-witch-hunt/131089883577553

Here are some steps you can take to protect yourself, somewhat.

* http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message1146844/pg1
Read all five pages of this one.^

* http://righthavenvictims.blogspot.com/p/avoid-righthaven-lawsuit.html

It is very important that you file a “Designated Agent” form (it can be you) with the Copyright Office. This will put you under some of the protections of the DMCA. Note, however, that this won’t stop them from filing a lawsuit but it makes them less likely to file one and win.

Since you manage multiple blogs, I don’t know what to advise you to do. Until some laws protecting website owners are passed, this is going to continue.


15 posted on 03/04/2011 11:16:11 PM PST by PastorBooks
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To: montag813

Good tip here:

http://righthavenvictims.blogspot.com/2011/02/webmaster-alert-start-following-us.html


16 posted on 03/04/2011 11:21:37 PM PST by PastorBooks
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