Posted on 11/16/2010 8:18:51 PM PST by Jim Robinson
The Las Vegas Review-Journal's copyright enforcement company no longer wants to litigate one of its more controversial cases: a complaint against the big political website the Democratic Underground.
Righthaven LLC on Aug. 10 sued the website after a message-board poster copied to the site four paragraphs of a 34-paragraph May 13 Review-Journal story about Republican Nevada U.S. Senate candidate Sharron Angle titled "Tea Party power fuels Angle."
The post by Democratic Underground website user "pampango" credited the information to the Review-Journal and included a link to the rest of the story on the Review-Journal website.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) of San Francisco, an online freedom of speech and privacy organization, as a public service is representing the Democratic Underground in the suit pending in federal court in Las Vegas.
The EFF in September hit Righthaven and the Review-Journal's parent company, Stephens Media LLC, with an answer and counterclaim saying the post at issue was protected by the fair use doctrine of copyright law and accusing the Review-Journal and Righthaven of abusing copyright law by trying to intimidate defendants into settling what critics call frivolous, no-warning lawsuits.
Unlike most of the newspaper industry, which generally seeks to resolve copyright problems out of court, the Review-Journal this year teamed with Righthaven to file dozens of generally no-warning lawsuits against website owners and bloggers...
(Excerpt) Read more at lasvegassun.com ...
So, DU gets a pass, but we are still under the gun?
I see.... then it should be the same for other sites, shouldn’t it?
IIRC, FR settled with Righthaven.
Not surprised. Righthaven and DU are on the same team.
Let me guess. George Soros is behind The Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Isn’t RATS underground supposed to be for entertainment purposes only?
Yes. It is only good for lols
The Electronic Frontier Foundation was formally founded on July 10, 1990, by Kapor, John Gilmore and Barlow. Initial funding was provided by Kapor, Steve Wozniak, and an anonymous benefactor.
Electronic Frontier Foundation got $300,000 dollars from Soros in 2008
This isn’t a surprise.
I know that you decided to settle, probably the right decision given the circumstances although many of us thought you ought to fight (we didn’t have to face the consequences of any decision). DU and perhaps others had a better case and better argument. It seems to me that Righthaven wants to drop the case because an adverse ruling will destroy their slimy little business model and will put an end to this nonsense. They clearly smell such an adverse ruling.
No matter the outcome, DU will continue to be the refuge of scoundrels as it always has been. If DU and EFF prevail, the free discussion of ideas will be the winner, not just these lefty losers. Go DU! (I swear that I’ll never say that again)
Where did you find that?
I checked for EFF and the three founders on Discover the Network. Came up empty.
Soros only has recent involvement as a donor I believe. Sometimes interests align. Otherwise, the EFF was founded by prominent Silicon Valley geeks long before Soros got involved in US politics.
This is right up the EFF’s alley since they’ve been doing a program on copyright abuse, and helping defend people against it, for a while. They even have a “takedown hall of shame” to showcase abuses of the DMCA takedown provision.
The above link exists only because the poster is on the other side of the net neutrality issue from the EFF. It is a fact that the telcos established astroturf organizations specifically for this issue, and that post is a rather poor attempt at painting the nation’s first electronic rights organization (founded 1990, when it hadn’t even been established that freedom of speech applied online) as a recent Soros astroturf organization in order to detract.
Some of the EFF financial backers from the 2008 Annual Report
FOUNDATIONS
Herb Block Foundation
David Bohnett Foundation
California Consumer Protection Foundation
Mitchell Kapor Foundation
David L. Klein Jr. Foundation
John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
Open Society Institute
Parker Family Foundation
William A. Runnels III Charitable Trust
Stephen M. Silberstein Foundation
http://www.eff.org/files/eff-2008-2009-annual-report.pdf
To partially quote James ‘Sawyer’ Ford- “Son of a...”.
Also notice their who’s who of the tech industry old-timers:
John Gilmore (USENET, Sun employee #5)
Phil and Kimberly Karn (Internet architect, also famous for challenging crypto export laws)
Eben Moglen (lawyer to developers, represented Zimmermann in challenging crypto export laws)
Brad Templeton (USENET, first electronic publishing)
Edward Tufte (information design pioneer)
Mitchell Kapor Foundation (Lotus 123 writer, EFF founder)
David Bohnett Foundation (GeoCities founder)
And a couple more modern ones:
Cory Doctorow (copyright activist)
Gordon Fyodor Lyon (nmap)
David Bohnett is a philanthropist and technology entrepreneur committed to effecting positive change through community building and social activism.
The Fund for Los Angeles, supporting a broad spectrum of arts, educational and civic programs including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, LACMA and the Venice Family Clinic; LGBT-related causes; graduate school leadership programs at the University of Michigan, UCLA, NYU and Harvard; voting rights and registration initiatives; supporting research and public policies to reduce the toll of firearm violence; and animal research and rights.
Grants totaling over $35 million to date have supported the work of a wide range of organizations including the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, The Wildlife Alliance, the ACLU Foundation, Equality California, and the David Bohnett Gay & Lesbian Leadership Fellows program at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. The David Bohnett CyberCenters are another major undertaking — currently at 63 LGBT centers nationwide, they offer business, educational, research, and recreational opportunities to the local gay and lesbian community via access to the Internet.
CCPF was established in 1991 by the Honorable Ira A. Brown Jr. (deceased) of the San Francisco Superior Court of the State of California.
As a strategic grantmaker, California Consumer Protection Foundation (CCPF) provides funding for nonprofit organizations, with special attention to small and grassroots programs, addressing and advocating for consumer issues in diverse areas, including health care, auto sales, consumer fraud, privacy, finance, insurance, energy, and telecommunications.
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