Attorneys for Eiser File Supplemental Notice; Request Full Transcript of July 14 Hearing

On Friday, attorneys representing Dana Eiser filed a supplemental notice to her previous motion to dismiss. The new filing requests a full transcript of Judge Hunt's July 14 sanctions hearing and any written connection to it, as well as the consideration of a public statement recently penned by "Sherm." As readers recall, "bully-hater" Sherm vacated his roles as CEO of Stephens Media and publisher of the R-J in November 2010, but continued his column, which time and again gets him into trouble.

Yesterday, Frederick authored a blog post about Sharron Angle and media reaction to her unsuccessful Senate campaign. This post is attached as Exhibit 1.9 The Angle posting elicited comments, and Frederick responded to several of the comments. In one of those responses, Frederick referenced the Righthaven lawsuit against Sharron Angle:
Frederick’s remark, “I even sued her for lifting our material”, is a statement that is of substantial relevance to Defendant’s claims that the Righthaven-client relationship is a sham. It constitutes a public admission by Stephens Media’s then-CEO that he—and by extension, Stephens Media—was truly in control of the Righthaven litigation. It is ironic that several hours before Judge Hunt’s sanctions hearing, Sherman Frederick made a public statement confirming everything that Judge Hunt would find later that same day.

Attorneys for Eiser, who are now litigating against Righthaven in four U.S. courts, requested in the filing that the court withhold ruling on the cross motions to dismiss until Righthaven provides the court with materials from the July 14 hearing. As pointed out in the filing, Hunt not only issued a monetary sanction against Righthaven on that day, he also ordered Righthaven to provide specific materials to every court currently handing a Righthaven case, including items requested in Friday's filing.

South Carolina attorneys representing Dana Eiser include: Todd Kincannon of The Kincannon Firm, Bill Conner of Horger and Conner LLC and Thad Viers of Coastal Law LLC.

See: Eiser's Supplemental Notice Regarding Cross Motions to Dismiss
See: Eiser's Amended Response to Righthaven's Motion to Dismiss

Sherman Frederick's Lifting GametimeIP's Content Takes on a Life of Its Own

Sherman Frederick may have more headaches besides defending himself against a lawsuit in South Carolina. We reported that Sherman Frederick had lifted parts of three paragraphs from the blog gametimeIP.com. Patrick Anderson is an IP lawyer with a good sense of humor where IP goes. He is offering up for sale at GametimeIP, with FULL copyrights, the three articles in question and not just the right to sue. It will be interesting to see if anyone takes him up on it.

Others are now weighing in on this story as well.

Techdirt: Want to give Righthaven's backers a Taste of Their Own Medicine

Patrick Anderson, who had been inundated with questions about this, has decided to put the copyrights for the three blog posts in question up for sale, so that if someone wants to sue Stephens Media and the LVRJ over Frederick's potential infringement, they can do so.

See: Full Techdirt article

EFF: Righthaven Cheerleader Wanted by Irony Police

If you don't agree that these excerpts are fair use, however, you'd be interested to know that Anderson decided to put the copyright rights for each of the three articles up for sale. Unlike Stephens Media's deal with Righthaven, GametimeIP is offering a total assignment, including the right to sue for past infringement.

See: Full EFF article

Related blog post:
06/19/11: Sherman Frederick Lifts Content from Blogger

VEGAS INC Provides Insightful Commentary and Back Story About the 'State of Righthaven'

Righthaven Hurts News Industry, One Ruling at a Time

Las Vegas Review-Journal columnist and former Publisher Sherman Frederick’s column today involving his “little friend” Righthaven could be Exhibit A in the case against Righthaven’s litigation strategy.
The case is this: Thanks to Righthaven, newspapers and other media organizations now have less copyright protection for their hard-earned content than they did just three months ago. And that’s more than a little odd, given Righthaven’s stated mission of protecting newspapers from online content infringers.

See: Article in full

This is a long and thoughtful piece by journalist Steve Green. The title encompasses only parts of it.

Sherman Frederick Lifts Content from Blogger

UPDATE 06/23/11: I have confirmed from Patrick Anderson from GametimeIP.com that he did not give Sherman Frederick permission to post parts of the three article on Sherman Frederick's column. Patrick Anderson is now offering on his blog to sell the rights to any interested party of the three articles in question. Makes you wonder if Sherman Frederick or the LVRJ will take him up on the offer as a defensive move.

UPDATE 06/21/11: Other blogs and sites have picked up on the fact the Sherman Frederick lifted content from another blog to decry lifting content:

TechDirt.com: Righthaven's Biggest Fan Copies Content As Part Of His Argument Against...
PaidContent.org: Righthaven Loses Another—And LV R-J Columnist Has A Strange ‘Defense’

06/19/11
This is interesting. Sherman Frederick, The former editor of the Las Vegas Review Journal and staunch Righthaven supporter as well as current defendant in a counter-suit involving Righthaven may very well have his hands in the cookie jar himself. He has an article on the LVRJ called "Content protection -- Night of the unthinking commentator" Here is the Google Search link for the article in question to avoid giving a direct link to the LVRJ.

Frederick's article contains content from three paragraphs of posts from the blog GametimeIP.com. Frederick fails to even use basic netiquette for citing other sources. The parts taken are not attributed to the author except for a link and not even set in quotation marks which could leave the reader to assume those are Frederick's words and not those of GametimeIP. To prove this point I put one of the portions used by Frederick into a Google search and both GametimeIP and Frederick's column came up.

It is interesting that Sherman Frederick writes about protecting his own content while taking the content from others. This is not the first time this has happened. Frederick embedded a Youtube video of a Saturday Night Live Skit that was later removed by NBC over copyright, as reported by Techdirt.com.

Sherman Frederick may claim he is within fair use, and probably is, but there are so many others that were also within a reasonable definition of fair use who have been called "content thieves" by Frederick and Righthaven so the hypocrisy is quite astounding.

Sherman Frederick once likened cutting and pasting someone else's content to stealing a Cadillac. I ask you Sherman Frederick, why did you take GametimeIP's Cadillac?

MAL Contends: Counterpunching Righthaven, aka Wronghaven the Net Troll

Righthaven, Say Hello to my little friend—Justice

The reference above echos Sherman Frederick [aka Shermy], a columnist for Stephens Media who in an infamous warning, writes "I promise you, you will meet my little friend called Righthaven [LLC]." (Las Vegas Review-Journal, September 1, 2010)
Frederick and his shady outfit should apologise to Oliver Stone and Al Pacino after they have been revealed to be running a fraudulent enterprise that has earned the enmity of an increasing number of federal judges, but a scheme lacking Tony Montana's pathological charm.
Not sexy, headline-grabbing news, but a small group of writers and public interest-minded intellectual property attorneys have taken on a billionaire-funded organization of fraudsters, Righthaven LLC, and are winning a victory for the First Amendment.

See: Article in full

Blogger MAL Contends, who was case was dismissed in April, offers a recap of recent events as well as a handy, "Visual Guide To The Business Model of Copyright Troll Righthaven LLC."

Review-Journal Publisher and Sidekick Who Sued Bloggers Demoted

The Internet community has spoken and we have been heard.

Las Vegas Publisher and Editor Who Sued Bloggers is Out of a Job

Sherman Frederick, the once powerful publisher of the Las Vegas Review Journal daily newspaper and his sidekick editor Thomas Mitchell have found themselves out of a job. The two powerful positions thought to be invincible found out last week they were anything but invincible. The statement from the newspaper was just as non-committal as possible.
The shakeup in the top ranks of the paper were attributed to "going in a different business direction." However, informed sources said the firing and demotions came as a surprise with no advance warnings. Reporters in the newsroom busy scouring sources for news leads didn't even see it coming. Frederick, who was also CEO of Stephens Media Group, the owner of the Las Vegas Review Journal, was dismissed from that position.

See: Article in full

On November 12, Righthaven LLC filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Peter Dierks, TZ Holdings LLC and Robert J. Zumbrunnen. Let us all hope that this is the last Righthaven lawsuit.