Righthaven Moves On To Suing Message Board Posters, Rather Than Just Site Operators

from the oh-come-on dept

Mon, Jan 17th 2011 6:24am — Mike Masnick

visual77 was the first of a few of you to send in the news that copyright-lawsuits-as-a-business-model firm Righthaven has expanded its targets to include posters on various message boards. In the past, it had focused on suing the various operators of sites, but not the users who often posted the content. For sites that had not registered a DMCA agent, the site operators were potentially (though not definitely) liable for any infringing content posted. However, the posters of such content themselves, of course, have always been potentially liable. In this case, they're even suing a guy who had forwarded a Las Vegas Review Journal story to a Google Groups mailing list. While this guy will probably settle, I would imagine it would be a fascinating fair use discussion in court.

Separately, that same article lists a number of other sites that Righthaven has gone after, and there's one surprise: Business Insider, the Harry Blodget-owned blog network that has been growing in popularity quite a bit lately. The site has something of a reputation for copying large segments of articles from other places at times, but you would think that the folks working there would know better than to try that with stories associated with Righthaven, with a primary reason being that Business Insider has had posts (admittedly "aggregated" from other sites) all about Righthaven and its lawsuits against other sites.

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Filed Under: copyright, dmca, message boards, posters
Companies: righthaven

17 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 17 Jan 2011 @ 6:34am

Is there any way to block the Las Vegas Review Journal from my internet?

I'm terrified that I might click and be counted as a pageview. Can't the just put up a paywall and go away?
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GrokIt, 17 Jan 2011 @ 7:21am

Block the troll!
Add the following to your hosts file:

# Las Vegas Review Journal - troll
127.0.0.1 96.6.46.80
127.0.0.1 lvrj.com
127.0.0.1 www.lvrj.com
127.0.0.1 96.6.45.67
127.0 .0.1 media.lvrj.com

If you don't know what I'm talking about, go to http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm for a good set of places to block and instructions on how to make a hosts file in windows. If in linux, just copy the text version to the end of your /etc/hosts (as root of course).

That should cover all the bases, I haven't tested it yet though.
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average_joe (profile), 17 Jan 2011 @ 7:28am

Will we soon see Righthaven mass John Doe lawsuits? I can't imagine why not.
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James Carmichael, 17 Jan 2011 @ 7:28am

Law Quiz
Mr. X holds up a corner store using a pistol, and a Hyundai as a gateway car. He found the store on GoogleMaps on his Dell computer but still got lost along the way there and asked Mrs. Y, a pedestrian, for directions. Who should be sued?

a) Mr. X, for the hold up;
b) None of the below;
c) The corner store, for failure to prevent hold up;
d) Hyundai, for allowing robber to get away;
e) Dell, for assisting in the robbery;
f) All of the above;
g) The pistol manufacturer, for making people-killing devices and distributing them;
h) Google, for failing to add a notice on GoogleMaps that corner stores should not be robbed;
i) Mrs. Y, for linking to infringing activities;
j) The United States Government for failure to educate Mr. X on proper conduct;
k) Microsoft, for having a lot of money;
l) God, for standing by while it was happening;
m) The Universe, for allowing the robbery to happen;
n) Only the people on this list who have money.
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average_joe (profile), 17 Jan 2011 @ 7:36am

Re: Law Quiz
Who you sue depends on where you draw the line for proximate causation. In your hypo, I'd say definitely (a), and maybe (c) depending on the facts.
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The eejit (profile), 17 Jan 2011 @ 7:43am

Re: Re: Law Quiz
If you're Righthaven, the answer seems to be o) all of the above.
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James Carmichael, 17 Jan 2011 @ 7:45am

Re: Re: Law Quiz
Well, my answer to this question would be that Mr. X is the only guilty party here, and that someone should assign a psychologist or something similar to find out what caused him to rob a corner store (poverty, drugs... how can we help and turn him in the right direction rather than stick him in a hole at our costs).

The quiz is really just a half-serious question directed at lawyers out there, and is related to the story in how so many lawsuits don't make any sense or sue the wrong party.

It's not a matter of who CAN be sued, but who SHOULD be sued, a question that not many people are asking themselves. I'm sure you have to pass some sort of ethics class before you pass the bar exam, but who the fuck is teaching that class???
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Pixelation, 17 Jan 2011 @ 8:01am

Sue 'em all
I have a new motto for Righthaven...

Sue 'em all, let God sort 'em out

Following the links, it appears that copying less than 75% of an article will now avoid a lawsuit from Righthaven.
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harbingerofdoom (profile), 17 Jan 2011 @ 9:19am

Re: Law Quiz
if youre rightheaven, the answer is N
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Mike Masnick (profile), 17 Jan 2011 @ 9:53am

Re:
Will we soon see Righthaven mass John Doe lawsuits? I can't imagine why not.

Might be tough to find such "masses" -- especially those who copied the same content.
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average_joe (profile), 17 Jan 2011 @ 10:15am

Re: Re:
I'm thinking they sue the site, the original poster of the infringing material, and also anyone who responds to the original poster. They could throw in anyone who links to any of the posts for good measure. Hell, they could sue us for even talking about it. Who isn't a John Doe these days? :)
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Any Mouse (profile), 17 Jan 2011 @ 12:35pm

Re: Re: Law Quiz
I seriously hope you're joking about (c)...
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Anonymous Coward, 17 Jan 2011 @ 1:42pm

Re: Block the troll!
I don't think it covers nearly enough my blocking includes 84 websites that are part of that scheme.

Here are they.

http://www.stephensmedia.com/gamingwire/
http://www.examiner-enterprise.com
http://www.bo onevilledemocrat.com
http://www.charlestonexpress.com
http://www.courier-tribune.com
http://www.c olumbiadailyherald.com
http://www.thedailyworld.com
http://www.eltiempolibre.com
http://www.elyne ws.com
http://www.greenwooddemocrat.com
http://www.hilohawaiitribune.com
http://www.herald-democr at.com
http://www.lasvegascitylife.com
http://www.reviewjournal.com
http://www.arkansasnews.com
http://www.thevidette.com
http://www.nwaonline.net
http://www.paris-express.com
http://www.pbcomm ercial.com
http://www.pressargus.com
http://www.southernnevadahomeandgarden.com/
http://www.snhom es.com
http://www.swtimes.com
http://www.vanburencountydem.com
http://www.viewnews.com
http://ww w.stephensdc.com
http://www.westhawaiitoday.com
http://www.1st100.com/
http://www.FOIArkansas.com
http://www.LasVegasNewsPapers.com
http://www.NWAOnline.net
http://www.FortSmith.com
http://www. PineBluff.com
http://www.Van-Buren.com
http://www.CasinoGaming.com
http://www.LasVegas.com
http: //www.LA.com
http://www.Hawaii.com
http://www.lvrj.com/communitylink/
http://donrey.koz.com/servl et/community_ProcServ/DBPAGE=cge&GID=01003011620948298958442745
http://www.texomalink.com/
htt p://www.reviewjournal.com/about/print/rjstaff.html
http://www.boonevilledemocrat.com/
http://www.c abotstarherald.com/
http://www.carlisleindependent.com/
http://www.charlestonexpress.com/
http:// www.freeweekly.com/
http://www.greenwooddemocrat.com/
http://www.hsvvoice.com/
http://www.jackson villepatriot.com/
http://www.lonokedemocrat.com/
http://www.nwaonline.net/
http://www.paris-expre ss.com/
http://www.pbcommercial.com/
http://www.pinebluff.com/
http://www.pressargus.com/
http:/ /www.sherwoodvoice.com/
http://www.swtimes.com/
http://www.fortsmith.com/
http://www.van-buren.co m/
http://www.maumellemonitor.com/
http://www.nlrtimes.com/
http://www.vanburencountydem.com/
ht tp://www.808classifieds.com/
http://www.bigislandweekly.com/
http://www.hilohawaiitribune.com/
ht tp://www.westhawaiitoday.com/
http://mcdonaldcountypress.com/
http://www.elynews.com/
http://www. reviewjournal.com/
http://www.lvrj.com/
http://www.pahrumpvalleytimes.com/
http://www.courier-tri bune.com/
http://www.examiner-enterprise.com/
http://www.columbiadailyherald.com/
http://www.amtr ib.com/
http://www.herald-democrat.com/
http://www.prosperpressnews.com/
http://www.vanalstynelea der.net/
http://www.thedailyworld.com/
http://www.thevidette.com/
http://www.arkansasnews.com/
h ttp://www.stephensdc.com/
http://www.stephenspress.com/
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Anonymous Coward, 17 Jan 2011 @ 1:55pm

Re: Block the troll!
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/blocksite/

Addon that blocks websites on Firefox.
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Mike Acker (profile), 18 Jan 2011 @ 4:17am

Predatory Litigation
I think this comes under the heading "Predatory Litigation".

"Predatory Litigation" would include the article on a_cademic a_dvantage which appears also in today's clips

The crap about a_cademic a_dvantage I am guessing was derived from using a "Reputation Defender" type scan and then processed using a robot.

Ugly

If this sort of process is allowed to continue the New Rules to the Net will become: "Post a comment: Get Sued". It will effectively suppress free speech on the Net. There will be cheering from certain areas
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spamgirl, 18 Jan 2011 @ 5:19am

ongoing list?
Is there an ongoing list of their clients somewhere on the web so we can continually update our blocked sites list?
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Steve, 29 Jan 2011 @ 12:06am

Re: Block the troll!
Good insight...
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