2010 Faces and Roles of Righthaven Victims

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U.S. District Judge Continues to Question Righthaven's Claim of "Harm"

Judge Questions Whether Nonprofit’s Web Posting Harmed R-J
U.S. District Judge James Mahan did not rule on the fair use issue Tuesday, but he continued to pound away at Righthaven's claim of "harm" after the Center for Intercultural Organizing (CIO) posted an entire R-J article without authorization. Key quotes from the recent Las Vegas Sun article include:

• "Fair use seems like an overriding issue," Mahan said. "These cases typically get settled and the fair use doctrine never gets properly raised. I think it needs to be addressed."
• "You really think the defendants are competing with the Review-Journal and making a ton of dough on this?" Mahan asked.
• A person reading the story on the center's website "may have never heard of the Review-Journal before reading that article," the judge said. "It's a totally different market," he said.
• But with Righthaven now owning a copyright to the story, Mahan said: "There is no market for the copyrighted work. You are not publishing it. You are not operating a newspaper. Righthaven only sues people, apparently," Mahan said.

Read: Article in full

December 2010 Righthaven Victims

12/28/10	Motown Muscle, Inc.	motownmuscle.com
12/28/10	Charles Coker - (Dismissed)	ccoker.net
12/27/10	Daniel Benedix and Tucson DUI News and Attorneys	tucsonduiattorney.biz
12/16/10	D. Scott Davis Jr. - (Settlement)	videoenhancedweb.com
12/16/10	Andrea Brennen, Justmeans and Martin Smith - (Illustration)	justmeans.com
12/15/10	Eric Lipman - (Illustration) (Dismissed)	legalblogwatch.typepad.com
12/15/10	Peter May-Ostendorp - (Illustration) (Dismissed)	posthumancondition.com
12/15/10	Kathleen Peddle - (Illustration) (Dismissed)	reactorfire.wordpress.com
12/14/10	Ed Estes and Estes Design Group - (Dismissed)	edestesdesign.wordpress.com
12/14/10	John Lundberg and Mark Pilkington - (Dismissed)	strangeattractor.co.uk
12/13/10	Azkar Choudhry and Pak.org - (Response)	paklinks.com
12/10/10	Carl Burrell and Flick & Tea - (Illustration) (Dismissed)	flickandtea.com
12/10/10	Daniel Barham and Urban Neighbourhood - (Illustration) (Counterclaim) (Dismissed)	urbanneighbourhood.com
12/09/10	Keith Combs - (Illustration) (Dismissed)	blog.technet.com/b/keithcombs
12/08/10	Matt Drudge and DrudgeReportArchives.com - (Illustration) (Settlement)	drudgereportarchives.com
12/02/10	Dana Eiser - (Response)	lowcountry912.wordpress.com

Righthaven Disputes Fair Use Defense Brought in Recent Copyright Case

Righthaven Disputes Fair Use Defense in Copyright Case
Righthaven attorneys argued against the Center for Intercultural Organizing (CIO) fair use defense this week (See: related post). Some key points include:

• "The defendants’ implied license argument is clearly procedurally improper: the assertion of an implied license theory is entirely non-responsive to the court’s order to show cause concerning fair use. Additionally, the defendants’ implied license theory is so far-fetched..."
• "The defendants are conveniently ignoring the fact that the Las Vegas Review-Journal (LVRJ) website only permits users to save a hyperlink leading to the articles published on the LVRJ website, or to e-mail a hyperlink leading to the LVRJ website..."
• "A defendant’s nonprofit status or educational motive does not somehow provide a blanket exemption from liability for infringement."
• The infringement at issue isn’t protected by the fair use doctrine because fair use in part requires the use to be "transformative."

Read: Article in full | Picked up by the Associated Press

EFF Calls on IP Attorneys: Help EFF Defend Against Righthaven Trolls

Help EFF Defend Against Righthaven Trolls

The copyright troll Righthaven has brought over 190 cases—and counting—against bloggers, online journalists and others since March of this year. While EFF has taken on two of these cases directly (Democratic Underground and DiBiase) we have also been attempting to help those sued to secure counsel. If the tactics of these trolls trouble you and you are a member of the bar with experience in copyright litigation, these defendants need your help.
--snip--
The pace at which EFF is hearing from Righthaven defendants is increasing, and we and our cooperating attorneys are presently working at capacity. We need more attorneys versed in copyright issues to whom we can refer people who need pro bono help defending themselves from Righthaven. EFF has already briefed several of these issues in the cases we're handling and those resources are available to counsel. Almost all of the cases are filed in the District of Nevada and we do have good links to possible local counsel.

See: Article in full | Contact rsreagan --at-- eff.org

If you are not an IP attorney, please make a donation to the EFF. They are defending your digital rights!

TechDirt.com: Copying Full Article Does Not Always Preclude Fair Use

Law Professor Explains How Even When A Site Copies An Entire Article, It May Still Be Fair Use

Berkeley law professor Jason Schultz has filed an excellent amicus brief in one of the many Righthaven lawsuits, pointing out that using an entire article does not preclude fair use (pdf), and then going on to explain why the use of an entire article in this particular case (which Righthaven brought against the Center for Intercultural Organizing) was almost certainly fair use...

See: Article in full | View: Amicus Brief (Professor Jason Schultz)

Implied License Argument Heating Up: "Friend of the Court" Brief Filed by Former EFF Member

Judge Focuses on Question of ‘Fair Use’ in Copyright Lawsuit

“The article has been removed from its usual habitat. It is not owned by a newspaper, but has been assigned to a company that does not publish news stories, but uses them exclusively to file infringement lawsuits. That practice has a chilling effect on potential fair uses of Righthaven-owned articles, diminishes public access to the facts contained in them and does nothing to advance the Copyright Act’s purpose of promoting artistic creation. When a copyrighted work is simply an instrumentality for litigation, it is properly granted the lowest possible amount of protection against a fair-use claim,” the brief said.

Read: Article in full

Denver Daily News Reports on the Post's Alignment with "Bottom Feeding Legal Outfit"

Post Aligned with 'Bottom Feeder?'

...Haters of both Righthaven and its founder, Mr. Gibson, say the firm is attacking people who should be given an education in copyright laws, not forced to defend themselves against expensive lawsuits.
“These are people who feel like they’re doing the online equivalent of cutting a newspaper out and sending a copy to their friends,” said Randazza, the California attorney representing “Righthaven victims.”
Randazza agreed that Drudge Report is a different beast, but pointed out that the Drudge Report suit is the first lawsuit brought by Righthaven against a large, truly profitable entity...

Read: Article in full

Campaign Begins to Delink the Denver Post and Las Vegas Review-Journal

Drudge Report: Urge Everyone to Delink the Denver Post and Las Vegas Review-Journal

The Petition instructs:

1. First, remove all potentially infringing content from your site or blog.
2. Then, remove any links you have to the DenverPost & the Las Vegas ReviewJournal or any of their other properties. Those domains include denverpost dot com, lvrj dot com, and reviewjournal dot com. Try not to send those sites any traffic or give them any “Google juice”. Generally speaking, the move links a site has the higher it will appear in Google searches. So, over time, fewer links to those sites will mean less traffic.
3. If you can’t completely remove your links to their sites, use bare URLs in the form above or similar. Don’t use HTML links (“a href”). If you absolutely have to use an HTML link, at least put a nofollow tag on it.

Righthaven Sues Drudge Report Owner, Matt Drudge

Drudge Report Owner Sued by Righthaven

Las Vegas copyright enforcement company Righthaven LLC on Wednesday filed its second copyright infringement lawsuit over Denver Post material, this time suing a big target: Drudge Report operator Matt Drudge.
The suit, filed in U.S. District Court for Nevada, charges a Nov. 18 Denver Post "illustration" called "Transportation Security Administration agents perform enhanced pat-downs" was posted without authorization the same day on the Drudge Report website as well as the drudgereportarchives.com site.
A court exhibit, however, indicates the illustration is actually a Denver Post photograph of a TSA officer patting down a passenger at Denver International Airport.

Read: Article in full

See more on Fox News, The Register, Politico, Colorado Independent, Wired and Westword.

Still no mention on the HuffingtonPost, whose Wikipedia page compares it to the Drudge Report. The Post has been given a number of "Best Blog" awards. Despite this, bloggers being sued by Righthaven and the threat Righthaven poses to all bloggers has been rejected by the Post as "unimportant." The Post also covers Denver, but remained silent on the recent Denver Post + Righthaven marriage.

EFF: Democratic Underground Responds to Righthaven Copyright Troll Lawsuit

Democratic Underground Responds to Righthaven Copyright Troll Lawsuit

EFF - Righthaven is attempting to make a business out of suing Internet websites for copyright infringement. It has filed 180 copyright actions so far —without ever first asking that a work be removed from the target website—in each case alleging “willful infringement” and attempting to extract settlements by threats of statutory damages (up to $150,000), attorneys’ fees and seizure of the domain name.
Democratic Underground -- represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), Fenwick & West LLP, and attorney Chad Bowers -- was sued by Righthaven on August 10 for a five-sentence excerpt of a Las Vegas Review-Journal news story that a user posted on the forum, with a link back to the Review-Journal website.

Read: Article in full | Read: Response

New Review-Journal Publisher Holds Fast on Righthaven Position

New Review-Journal Publisher Stands Behind Copyright Lawsuits

Interviewed on Nevada Public Radio KNPR’s State of Nevada with Dave Becker at News 88.9 KNPR, Bob Brown was asked about the newspaper’s relationship with Righthaven, a newspaper content copyright enforcement company that since March has sued 180 website operators and bloggers.
--snip--
“This is a business decision and it’s based on what’s right. For somebody to tell me that it’s not right for me to file a lawsuit based on them taking my information, I think is specious,” Brown said on the broadcast.

Read: Article in full

It certainly is "specious" to create sacrificial lambs like activist Dana Eiser.

Alert: MediaNews Group Signs on with Righthaven Copyright Trolling Scam

The Righthaven Block List Grows to 178 Newspaper URLS.

The Las Vegas Sun reports that Righthaven LLC is now doing business with MediaNews Group, whose properties include the Denver Post, the San Bernardino Sun, the San Jose Mercury News, the Detroit News, the Salt Lake Tribune and more.

Righthaven Now Working with Media News, Sues Over Denver Post Column

An attorney for Righthaven filed the suit Thursday in federal court in Charleston, S.C. This appears to be the first lawsuit Righthaven has filed in a federal court outside of Nevada, where since March it has filed 179 copyright infringement lawsuits.
Thursday’s suit would seem to raise the stakes in Righthaven’s litigation campaign as it now involves Media News, which calls itself the nation’s second-largest media company, with major newspaper operations in Colorado, Northern and Southern California, Salt Lake City, El Paso, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Detroit and elsewhere.

Read: Article in Full

It was reported in January 2010 that Affiliated Media Inc., the holding company for MediaNews Group Inc. newspapers, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.