Righthaven seeks to dismiss [its own suit against DU] over posting of R-J story

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Thanks, kcvl, for all the posts, there’s alot of information there.

All but the willfully blind should see EFF as a hodgepodge of far left individuals and interest groups.

I find it just about inconcievable to believe they would in any way be interested in protecting liberty for all.

And I would think that anything George Soros is supporting is meant to at some point to harm America.

I totally agree!

The Open Society Institute is George Soros. He founded it in 1993.

All but the willfully blind should see EFF as a hodgepodge of far left individuals and interest groups.

It's a rights organization founded in 1990 by famous geeks who realized the government was clueless about computers, and so were our laws. Note this thread is about them defending people against copyright abuse. Does that not qualify as liberty for all? They would have probably helped FR if they had been asked. I would be seriously disappointed if they didn't.

Your guilt by association can't diminsh the good work they've done for electronic privacy, free speech and fair use (which FR heavily depends on). They've successfully protected journalists against Apple, defended academic research, defended the freedom to publish damaging evidence about Diebold's voting machines, defended a developer against malicious corporate-driven prosecution, helped overturn damaging business method patents, fought against software licenses that attempt to nullify your rights under copyright law and the Constitution, and fought various abuses of the DMCA. They unsuccessfully tried to stop the blatantly unconstitutional expansion of copyright terms in the late 90s and challenge the constitutionality of the anticircumvention portion of the DMCA.

Not that I agree with them on everything though. IMHO they went too far defending file sharing that was blatant copyright infringement.

The ONLY reason the EFF is now under attack as a leftist organization is because of their support for net neutrality. The issue of them being left/right never appeared until that, in an effort to equate them with telco-created astroturf organizations. Net neutrality is in essence non-partisan, not left/right, not Republican/Democrat. It is about retaining the openness of the Internet so that sites like FR can operate without having to pay off all the individual consumer ISPs.

Soros has given money to Grameen Bank, which makes microloans for small businesses so people can get out of poverty using capitalism instead of government grants. He funded dissident movements in the Soviet Bloc. Were those meant to harm America? He also supports -- OMG -- the Library of Congress! Most of what he does is bad, otherwise think of a stopped clock.

You have to look at the ACTIONS of each organization, and this one was around LONG before Soros got into US politics, fighting for the rights of all Americans.

You have to look at the ACTIONS of each organization, and this one was around LONG before Soros got into US politics, fighting for the rights of all Americans.

Whatever the intention of your post, I'm not particularly inclined to alter my viewpoint when you conclude the post with a statement like that.

.............................

In 1979 Soros established the Open Society Institute (OSI), which serves as the flagship of a network of Soros foundations that donate tens of millions of dollars each year to a wide array of individuals and organizations that share the founder's agendas. Those agendas can be summarized as follows:

promoting the view that America is institutionally an oppressive nation
promoting the election of leftist political candidates throughout the United States
opposing virtually all post-9/11 national security measures enacted by U.S. government, particularly the Patriot Act depicting American military actions as unjust, unwarranted, and immoral
promoting open borders, mass immigration, and a watering down of current immigration laws
promoting a dramatic expansion of social welfare programs funded by ever-escalating taxes
promoting social welfare benefits and amnesty for illegal aliens
defending the civil rights and liberties of suspected anti-American terrorists and their abetters
financing the recruitment and training of future activist leaders of the political Left
advocating America's unilateral disarmament and/or a steep reduction in its military spending
opposing the death penalty in all circumstances
promoting socialized medicine in the United States
promoting the tenets of radical environmentalism, whose ultimate goal, as writer Michael Berliner has explained, is "not clean air and clean water, [but] rather ... the demolition of technological/industrial civilization"
bringing American foreign policy under the control of the United Nations
promoting racial and ethnic preferences in academia and the business world alike
promoting taxpayer-funded abortion-on-demand
advocating stricter gun-control measures
advocating the legalization of marijuana

Dicoverthenetworks-Individual Profile-George Soros

The OSI was created in 1993, but even then Soros didn’t really get direcly involved in US politics much, at least not in a high-profile manner, until Bush. He did establish earlier organizations to fund dissidents in communist countries. Do you have a problem with someone trying to overthrow communist governments during the Cold War?

You seem to rely on this discoverthenetworks site. I wouldn’t suggest doing that in the future if they can’t get such basic facts right.

The OSI was created in 1993, but even then Soros didn’t really get direcly involved in US politics much, at least not in a high-profile manner, until Bush. He did establish earlier organizations to fund dissidents in communist countries. Do you have a problem with someone trying to overthrow communist governments during the Cold War?

You seem to rely on this discoverthenetworks site. I wouldn’t suggest doing that in the future if they can’t get such basic facts right.

The 1979 reference is explained by further investigation...

Since 1979, Soros' foundation network -- whose flagship is the Open Society Institute (OSI)...

Dicoverthenetworks is a reference site established and maintained by David Horowitz. I have a great deal of respect for the man and his work.

If it is your position to demean Horowitz and insult me while praising Soros for funding dissidents during the Cold War, then quite frankly, you're wasting my time and yours. You're just not going to find many Soros fans around here.

Soros’ foundations started in 1979, first to fight Apartheid and then Eastern European communism, but the OSI didn’t get created until 1993.

I remain correct, and your source remains wrong. The EFF was founded before the OSI.

DU isn’t letting Righthaven or LVRJ off the hook according to this source. I was going to start a thread but decided to update this one instead.

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/12/democratic-underground-responds-righthaven

From Electronic Frontier Foundation:

Democratic Underground Responds to Righthaven Copyright Troll Lawsuit

Commentary by Kurt Opsahl

Righthaven is attempting to make a business out of suing Internet websites for copyright infringement. It has filed 180 copyright actions so far —without ever first asking that a work be removed from the target website—in each case alleging “willful infringement” and attempting to extract settlements by threats of statutory damages (up to $150,000), attorneys’ fees and seizure of the domain name.

Democratic Underground — represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), Fenwick & West LLP, and attorney Chad Bowers — was sued by Righthaven on August 10 for a five-sentence excerpt of a Las Vegas Review-Journal news story that a user posted on the forum, with a link back to the Review-Journal website.

Democratic Underground, a political message forum, refused to be intimidated by Righthaven’s action. They retained counsel and responded with a counterclaim that joined Righthaven’ affiliate and funder, Stephens Media, LLC (publisher of the Review-Journal), and laid bare the numerous defects not only in Righthaven’s claims, but in its business model itself. Not surprisingly, Righthaven now wants out—so badly, in fact, that it has moved to voluntarily dismiss its claim with prejudice in order to avoid a decision on the merits. However, Righthaven pleads to be let off the hook for Democratic Underground’s fees and costs defending the lawsuit.

Democratic Underground responded to Righthaven’s motion yesterday. DU agrees that this case should be over—indeed, it should never have started. But it should not end until Righthaven is called to account for the cost of the defense it provoked. To allow Righthaven to avoid compensating innocent defendants who refused to be coerced would be unjust and unsupportable. Accordingly, Democratic Underground asked the Court to deny the conditions Righthaven wrongfully proposed for the motion for voluntary dismissal and instead grant summary judgment in its favor.

In addition, Stephens Media has filed a motion to be let out of the case, piously claiming that it is just an innocent bystander, having done nothing but assign a copyright to Righthaven. To the contrary, Stephens Media has publicly admitted that it “grubstaked and contracted with a company called Righthaven,” and made numerous public statements discussing Stephens Media’s ownership interest in Righthaven, its control over who Righthaven sues, and Righthaven’s business practices that are based on agreements with Stephens Media: with its general counsel representing, for instance, that “I can tell Righthaven not to sue somebody.” Democratic Underground responded to that motion as well, asking the court to reject Stephens Media’s attempt to walk away from the copyright troll it created, and allow the counter-claim so that the online forum can receive full justice.