Newspaper Publisher Sues Guy For Posting Article Based On Research He Gave The Paper For Free

from the going-a-bit-far? dept

Earlier this year, we wrote about the company Righthaven, which has some sort of connection to the Las Vegas Journal Review (or, at least, its lawyer), who is now going around suing lots of sites for reposting LVJR content. What was interesting about the lawsuits is that Righthaven never sent any cease-and-desists or DMCA takedowns or anything. It just went straight to suing. That's allowed... but odd. On top of that, many of the repostings weren't competitors or sites that were trying to take business away from the LVJR. In fact, in many cases, it involved organizations mentioned in the LVJR who were trying to promote the LVJR.

Apparently, Righthaven and LVJR continue to file these kinds of lawsuits, and they just keep getting more ridiculous. Michael Scott points us to to the fact that Righthaven has sued a guy named Anthony Curtis, who reposted an article from the LVJR that talked about research Curtis had done on ticket prices for entertainment shows in Vegas.

If you're playing along at home, the LVJR published an article based on research -- which it got for free -- from Curtis, and when he then tries to highlight that article, the LVJR sues him. As the MediaPost story notes, the LVJR article about Curtis' research even notes that his annual survey is a "thankless task." Thankless, indeed.
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Filed Under: copyright, lawsuits
Companies: las vegas journal review, righthaven


Reader Comments

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  • icon
    Richard (profile), 14 Jul 2010 @ 3:30am

    Licence

    Next time Curtis should publish his research on a CC "Share Alike" Licence.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 14 Jul 2010 @ 3:33am

      Re: Licence

      Miss appropriating others work is actually a crime can he make the general attorney sue the paper for that?

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    bob, 14 Jul 2010 @ 4:00am

    I don't understand how we got here.

    Is it possible that it's cheaper for these people to file lawsuits than to actually look at the content of the case?

    There has to be some backlash on all this suing eventually.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    The Nerve of that Guy, 14 Jul 2010 @ 4:27am

    No good deed goes unpunished

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 14 Jul 2010 @ 4:41am

      Re:

      No ridiculous law suit goes unpublished on Tech Dirt.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        Anonymous Coward, 14 Jul 2010 @ 7:54am

        Re: Re:

        Your point?

        link to this | view in chronology ]

        • identicon
          Anonymous Coward, 14 Jul 2010 @ 7:58am

          Re: Re: Re:

          and I'm sure that many ridiculous lawsuits go unpunished being that the mere volume of ridiculous lawsuits is too enumerating for anyone to keep up.

          link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 14 Jul 2010 @ 4:41am

    the difference is how each came to have the others work product. if curtis actively and willingly gave them permission to use his work (or publishes it under one of those confusing creative commons licenses) then he would have not issue with the paper.

    his mistake is taking an entire article, based in part of his work, and republishing it without permission. there is no share and share alike rule in the game. he needed to ask permission (which he likely would have received).

    you see, the issue isnt permission culture, its people who think they have rights to things and dont.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    isabel (profile), 14 Jul 2010 @ 4:56am

    in my opinion

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    isabel (profile), 14 Jul 2010 @ 4:57am

    in my opinion

    there are too many lawyers in the world, clamouring for work. Perhaps there should be a curb on the profession?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 14 Jul 2010 @ 8:27am

      Re: in my opinion

      A long time ago I read "The Number of the Beast" by Robert Heinlein. In one of his universes, he wrote about how our society rose up and killed all the lawyers...

      http://www.heinleinsociety.org/concordance/books/nb_hc.htm
      Year They Hanged the Lawyers
      In Beulahland, this momentous event occurred in 1965. It is never mentioned in the history books, and information about it is restricted.

      That's starting to sound like a great idea to me...

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 14 Jul 2010 @ 6:11am

    "never sent and cease-and-desists" should be "never sent any cease-and-desists"?

    link to this | view in chronology ]


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