Judge Rules that Reposting an Entire Article Without Permission Is ‘Fair Use’

A federal judge ruled in favor of a defendant who reposted an entire article in a copyright case on Monday, Wired reports. The lawsuit was brought by Righthaven, a Las Vegas-based “copyright litigation factory,” according to Wired, that has sued more than 200 websites, bloggers, and commenters for copyright infringement. This particular lawsuit targeted Wayne Hoehn, who posted an entire editorial from the Las Vegas Review-Journal and its headline, “Public Employee Pensions: We Can’t Afford Them” on a website medjacksports.com. Hoehn was not an employee of the site.

I used to read the Onion when you could post a piece on FR. I haven’t been there since.

I often read a lot of articles on the Daily Mail, the Telegraph, and lots of local TV station sites (read the article on FR, and then go to the site for the video,etc) simply because the article is posted on FR. Otherwise I certainly wouldn’t go there. I mean, why would I check out a Montana local station, like I did yesterday?

I especially won’t read the NY Times and LA Times on their own, but often a freeper will post something, so I ‘ll go take a peek there.

Now these sites all have software telling them where people are coming from, so they must know how FR is a portal to them. They know all this. They either have bad management or an attitude, or both.

If anything, IMHO reading reposted articles INCREASES the eyeballs on the site. I certainly don’t read, say, Der Spiegal, unless a freeper posts an article from it.

Same here. I never go to CNN or ABC.com unless posted here because sometimes I want to see comments. The CBC is left leaning, however after Harper's (Conservative PM) victory in Ottawa I went to the NY times via here and saw many conservative viewpoints in the comments section, something I wouldn't have seen had it not been posted here in entirety.

“f I excerpt a sentence in my reply, does my post get blocked? If I write a technical article and quote (with attribution) the source, will that get my whole article flagged as duplicate?”

I would guess not. I’m referencing the theme of this story - a stupid judge ruling that lifting an entire article is “fair use.” That gives a green light to content and article scrapers. These A-holes will copy entire web pages, optimize them for adsense and steal money using your work. In my mind, that’s equivalent to copying a current best seller, printing it and selling them on the street without giving the author his cut.

Keep in mind, though, that I don’t speak for Google. Who knows what these Google dipwads will do. The Panda 1 release destroyed thousands and thousands of small businesses relying on adsense for income and destroyed thousands more who were affiliate sellers.

We’re seeing fascism in action. Google pulled a fast one and funneled at least one billion dollars in adsense to the dying media, like the NYT, at the expense of thousands of small businesses that were beating the dinosaur media at their own game. Google’s fingerprints are all over this shadey deal. At the least, Google violated anti-trust laws and needs to be broken into a dozen pieces, while Google board members and the CEO serve a long time in prison. But Google is in bed with the fascist obuma, so nothing will happen.

It will eventually come down to states and their citizens taking direct action against these thieving elitist pigs occupying Washington.

Oops! I’m on my soapbox. Better stop now.

As much as I’d like to see copyright law revised to reflect reality and as much as I despise Righthaven, this isn’t the right decision. The notion of “fair use” is pretty good actually, it’s when pinheads like Righthaven try to claim that any use of their material constitutes infringement that things go off the cliff. The intellectual property of content creators needs to be protected, and a revised Fair Use policy could do that. It’s a balance.

I expect this ruling will be appealed and overturned.

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