Posted on 12/07/2010 11:56:39 AM PST by Jim Robinson
Well, well, well. Remember back when the Associated Press threatened bloggers for quoting snippets of AP articles? Is the organization considering dipping its toes in the Righthaven waters? The Las Vegas Sun reports that Righthaven has signed up Media News as a client and has sued a blogger on behalf of the Denver Post, after the blogger apparently reposted a Denver Post column by Mike Rosen (with a link and credit). This is interesting for a few different reasons. First, it was just a few weeks ago that the Denver Post published a cryptic "reminder" about copyright that had a bunch of people scratching their heads. I had thought about mentioning it at the time, but it seemed so utterly lacking in context, that there wasn't much to say. I guess the Righthaven lawsuit provides context...
(Excerpt) Read more at techdirt.com ...
Associated Press has always swapped spit with obama and the liberals, and this is just their “committee assignment” in killing the opposition...aka “Hush Rush”.
You want to beat them at this?
Up the operating costs a bit (read: fundraise), hire two writers, and have them be the only two who can post articles. They can interpret what they see on the wires. That will make all of our content original material.
You cannot copyright facts, just the presentation of them.
Bye bye, Denver Post! No more free advertising for you!
Can we file this under MSM continues to dig it’s own grave?
lol. They would hate that.
Plus, why do some sites NOT want to have their articles linked to? How crazy are they?
“You cannot copyright facts, just the presentation of them.”
Not always true. There’s a “hot news” exception.
Righthaven now working with Media News, sues over Denver Post column
http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010/dec/05/righthaven-now-working-media-news-sues-over-denver/
Yes, witness the rise of open media, reporting on the reports. It will happen.
I suspect that some of the “news” sources are more upset with FReepers exposing faulty ‘facts’ and debating the opinions in the original articles.
The level of “debate” on news websites is non-existent. 1/3rd spam, 1/3rd bot-responses to certain words or phrases in a forum post, and 1/4 name-calling (Repugutard teabagger et al). Yahoo and other sites are completely unreadable in the commentary.
And writing a letter to the editor is a pointless exercise (most won’t see print, and some may be so heavily edited before they go to press that the original intent has been flipped).
AP seems to be down to hoping the court system can save their outmoded business model.
I thought they were crazy, then I realized it probably has more to do with them wanting to control when you can not see their content, than where you can see it.
Jim Robinson posted thread on media vs internet...
Courts may be tiring of copyright trolls, like Righthaven, A Federal Judge in Las Vegas tells Righthaven to show cause as to why lawsuit should not be dismissed.
Link here: http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010/nov/22/judge-righthaven-show-why-lawsuit-shouldnt-be-dism/
As Law Professor Goldman opined: “It could be that the judge already assumes the defendants made a fair use and is wondering if Righthaven has anything persuasive to convince him otherwise. More likely, the judge is aware of the Realty One opinion and wants Righthaven to help explain how this case differs. Either way, this is not a good development for Righthaven; but if it’s the latter, it’s not necessarily bad as Righthaven can distinguish the situations on several grounds,” said Goldman, associate professor at the Santa Clara University School of Law in California and director of the High Tech Law Institute there.
“Even so, the fact the judge raised this issue unprompted is a sign that judges want to clear their dockets of low-merit cases, even if they have to jumpstart that inquiry themselves,” Goldman added.
What is the current FR policy on links to AP articles? Should we notify the moderators when the rules are not followed?
Our policy for AP for the last few years has been brief excerpts only. And it is a problem because so many sources post associated press articles. When we spot them, we either pull or excerpt.
So excerpt is just one sentence?
We are now officially registered with the copyright office for DMCA “safe harbor” provisions:
http://www.freerepublic.com/home.htm#copyright
If someone posts too much of a copyrighted article to FR, DMCA says the copyright holder must send us a formal takedown notice. It cost us an arm and a leg and we are not completely inoculated, but as part of our settlement agreement, Righthaven has agreed to send us DMCA takedown notices rather than suing us if someone slips up in the future.
Fair use says you may quote whatever part you need of a factual news article to make your point. But generally speaking, the briefer the easier to defend as fair use.
It would be wise, as a public service, if we repeatedly reminded people who are like us (who are champions for freedom) of the important step of registering with the Copyright Office per the safe harbor protections.
It's also a shame that things have gotten to the point that one must register with the government to speak about current news.
Expect much more of this.
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