Newspaper Publisher Defends Filing 22 Copyright Lawsuits Against Sites Who Copied Text... With Links Back
from the you're-going-with-the-steal-a-car-analogy? dept
Back in April, we got a tip from someone that a lawyer who had worked for the Las Vegas Journal Review newspaper had set up shop as a company, called Righthaven, to sue websites that post copies of LVJR stories. We looked into the story, and tried to trace the path from LVJR to Righthaven -- even speaking with someone at Righthaven who didn't give particularly enlightening answers. In the end, we chose not to run a story, because there wasn't much detail to go on. However, as more information has come out, the story gets more and more ridiculous.First, most (if not all) of the websites being sued all published links back to the original LVJR stories. Second, almost all of the sites were not, in any way, competitors of the LVJR. Instead, they were different organizations or groups that followed certain issues, and in the process reposted a variety of stories on those issues, including links back to the LVJR. While this might be copyright infringement, it can be a borderline case, and it's hard to argue that it does any harm to the LVJR. If anything, it's promoting their coverage. However, the really bizarre part of all of this was that Righthaven sued all these sites without first issuing a DMCA takedown or giving any notification at all to the sites. It just sued. Now, there certainly is no legal requirement to issue a DMCA takedown or to notify people first, but it is odd and unexpected -- especially in scenarios where I'd bet many of the sites in question would have just taken down the content.
Now, Eric Goldman alerts us to the news that the LVJR's publisher, Sherman Frederick, is defending these lawsuits with one of the more economically and legally clueless arguments we've heard in a long time. He even pulls out the ridiculous "you wouldn't steal a car, so why are you stealing my content" analogies:
Say I owned a beautiful 1967 Corvette and kept it parked in my front yard.Except, of course, any fifth grader could point out the obvious difference. Making a copy of your news (and linking back to it) is not "driving off with it." No one has "driven away" the content. The content on the LVRJ website is still there. Not stolen at all. Might there be "infringement"? It's possible. But, there are other issues to take into consideration -- such as the actual impact on the LVRJ. It's hard to make any reasonable claim that any of these sites did any damage whatsoever to the LVRJ. In fact, you could argue that all of them helped promote the LVRJ as a publication to follow on these issues.
And you, being a Corvette enthusiast, saw my Vette from the street. You stopped and stood on the sidewalk admiring it. You liked it so much you called friends and gave them my address in case they also wanted to drive over for a gander.
There'd be nothing wrong with that. I like my '67 Vette and I keep in the front yard because I like people to see it.
But then, you entered my front yard, climbed into the front seat and drove it away.
I'm absolutely, 100% not OK with that. In fact, I'm calling the police and reporting that you stole my car....
Yet, when it comes to copyrighted material -- news that my company spends money to gather and constitutes the essence of what we are as a business -- some people think they can not only look at it, but also steal it. And they do. They essentially step into the front yard and drive that content away.
Reading between the lines, I'm kind of wondering if Frederik is really trying to set up an operation that is more like US Copyright Group or ACS:Law, seeking to file a bunch of borderline questionable lawsuits just to get money out of people. He admits in the article that his paper has "grubstaked" (grubstaked?!?) Righthaven and encourages other publishers to contract with Righthaven as well. He doesn't mention that the company CEO apparently was (or still is?) a lawyer who did work for LVRJ, though he does suggest that if you want to work with Righthaven, you contact LVRJ's general counsel.
Wendy Davis, over at Mediapost, has an excellent article ripping apart Frederik's bizarre editorial, pointing out how the "car" analogy makes no sense at all. Davis, in an earlier article, also pointed out that it seemed unlikely that the amount Righthaven could get from any potential court victory could possibly outweigh the legal costs. The whole thing really is bizarre.
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Filed Under: copyright, fair use, journalism, sherman frederick
Companies: las vegas journal review, righthaven
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yes, but will charles krauthammer sue him?
frederick
http://www.lvrj.com/blogs/sherm/Those_troublesome_Jews.html
krauthammer
http ://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/03/AR2010060304287.html
(warning: the post article is registration required)
of course, you can't really deep-link to the washington post story anyway because it's behind a paywall. and you can't really find the original quote because that means it's not in google's search engine. but, i guess all that's a different post altogether.
m3mnoch.
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Much of the legal costs are what goes to lawyers, isn't that kinda the point? To make money for lawyers?
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Re: yes, but will charles krauthammer sue him?
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Re:
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Of course... since I took the picture, I then own the copyright to said picture, and could sue my friends if they choose to forward it to their friends without my written consent. Man... this copyright stuff is confusing. :p
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Re: yes, but will charles krauthammer sue him?
Hmm... I as about to update the post to point this out, but I see at the end he says "You can read the full column in Sunday's Review-Journal." So it sounds like they licensed the column...
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So would hundreds of millions of others, at first, and because there's more value in a car than a newspaper article, I'm sure a billion people would steal cars.
But only if stealing were like copying, which it isn't.
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Re:
The only thing I would change is that in the analogy, Goldman is trying to sell his 'vette, and you sharing the pictures and location info would actually help him do that.
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So you have a little snippet, (the picture) and the address (link) and suddenly more people are checking out your vette
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* Full name
* Email
* Street address (optional)
* ZIP code
* Birth date
Thought police, anyone? Post something they don't like, and the partyvan is on the way...
(note 1: Geneder (inferred from name) + ZIP + DOB = 87% identification rate)
(note 2: Of course, everybody lies on the internet. Or should, at least.)
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Grubstake
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How To...
1) Make something popular enough that people will want to copy/link-to it.
2) Use the Judicial branch as your personal enforcement squad and sue everybody.
3) Profit?
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Re:
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Their prerogative
I don't know if this is legally infringement, but in my opinion, copying an entire article, even with proper attribution and/or a link back to the original, is wrong. No, I don't think it makes sense to lock your content behind a wall, but that is the prerogative of the content creator, even it you could somehow prove that there was actually a net benefit to the creator. It'd be like the government making IRA and 401k contributions mandatory. "It's good for you, right? So what's the problem?"
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Re: Their prerogative
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Re: Re: yes, but will charles krauthammer sue him?
People often conflate and entangle the two.
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So..
Then I put a sign on my car that says "This is where I got the idea for my car" telling the directions back to his place.
I guess making copies of people's cars, while not touching their car, is some how illegal?
Tangible = finite
Intangible = infinite
Ma'b we should require a PH.D in Math in order to make ANY laws about intangible things since smarty pants math people are the only ones to comprehend the idea of "infinite" correctly.
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Re: How To...
1a) Go to Law School
1b) Become the lawyer for the person that makes something popular enough that people will want to copy/link-to it... and so on
...
3) Profit!
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[...]"the "car" analogy makes no sense at all."
Actually it makes perfect sense. Talking about it and linking to the article is the equivalent of
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Re:
One thought that occurred to me reading the comments others have left is this: It appears that there is a basic misunderstanding of the differences between publicising print and online material.
Many of the arguments given are valid for print. However, online is a different kettle of fish. Online publicity may be counterintuitive to those already established in print media. Reposting an article will gain you a wider online reputation, and backlinking may assist to rank you higher on the search engines. So, those that stated they thought they were complimenting the original site were correct.
That said, it is more beneficial to the original website if they were to repost part of the original article with a backlink, as it drives more traffic to their site as people may follow the link to read the full article. However, surely getting in touch with the person/s reposting and politely explaining this would be much more beneficial to LVRJ in the long run.
It seems to me that educating themselves in online promotion is called for, rather than lawyering up and making fools of themselves in defending their choice. I'm willing to concede that my own understanding of online publicising may not quite up to scratch, though. I may be missing something?
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Real Issue
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Rebuttal WIN!
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It's a consPiracy!
The way to handle presumably mobbed-up Las Vegas Review-Journal is to NEVER link to its site ever again, copy all facts out of a story, never name the source/author/title, then claim 100% of the facts for your site. Pit it's presumably mobbed-up lawfirm and its lawyers on your hit list, digging for dirt FOREVER. Case closed.
FYI the kosher nostra founded and run Vegas, with a kosher nostra lawyer as the Vegas mayor. No wonder Vegas is a ghost town.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Goodman
desertpeace.wordpress.com/2010/05/23/the-kosher-nostra-gets-busted-in-las-vegas/
Learn how to litigate copyright cases without a lawyer, or send your family to law school. I did. I won in court.
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