Posted on 01/13/2011 11:42:25 AM PST by mnehring
Las Vegas copyright enforcement company Righthaven LLC is now suing individual message-board posters, not just website operators...
..An attorney for Righthaven on Wednesday said those notices (DCMA) don't apply to individual website users who violate copyrights by posting material online without authorization.
(Excerpt) Read more at lasvegassun.com ...
I have a serious question in regards to this.
At one point I was an admin/moderator on a “bi-partisan” message board. Of course I lit all the libs up there like a Christmas tree in how much they disliked me and my posting style. I decided it wasn’t worth the trouble and quit.
On my way out the door I deleted ALL my posts/threads and the site content was reduced dramatically. The owner of the site restored my posts from a site backup against my wishes and said I had no recourse but to accept that I posted it and since he owned the site and messages posted to it.
Now, what exactly would MY legal options have been?
They do this and all of sudden message boards will have “post as anonymous” option.
Well, we’ll fight off any subpoenas to the best of our ability. I’m pretty sure there are precedents to protect anonymity on public postings.
They are even going after posters on boards they already sued and settled with.
How can they do this?
Obviously they have turned this into a business. Has nothing to do with the Law.
IANAL, but I would think that if you have proof (logs, screen shots, cached web pages) that you removed/deleted any such postings that your liability, if any, would be limited to the time period during which you had administrative control over said postings.
Will we ever have tort reform in this country?
Unfortunately, anonymous posting would give an open door to automated spambots. Forums would be filled with Viagra and “enlargement” ads and things much worse.
Any way to obscure a public post with “Name Withheld” or some other descriptor, but leaves a record in the server would only invite supoenas of the identity of the poster. If the record of the true poster was deleted from the server after the post, then a lawsuit could allege that data was being deleted on purpose and the owners liable.
Groan!
So, for example, if they subpoena my information, will you notify me and give me the option of hiring an attorney to fight the subpoena or pay for your attorney’s legal costs to do so?
I’m just curious. I don’t think I’ve violated their copyright.
By agreeing to post, you probably gave them rights to own your post forever
Most definitely.
And yet their webpages still have share links for the large social networking sites.
Not only that but they have retroactively done it.
User posts an article, RightHaven buys copyright to article, Righthaven sues poster for posting the article even though it was posted before RightHaven even owned the copyright.
These guys are absolute legal scumbags.
Yep. Right after term limits.
Guess? Maybe you could say you are Blogging as an individual poster.
Marking for future tagline use.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2640808/posts?page=22#22
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HOSTS File Blocklist of RIGHTHAVEN Clients as of Dec 5 2010
Dec 10 2010 | JerseyHighlander
Posted on Fri Dec 10 2010 14:46:46 GMT-0500 (Eastern Standard Time) by JerseyHighlander
Righthaven LLC — a bottom feeding legal outfit — has teamed up with the Las Vegas Review-Journal to sue ‘mom and pop’ websites, as well as nonprofit, political action, public interest, writers, and forum board operators for copyright violations. The strategy of Righthaven is to sue hundreds and thousands of these websites and counts on the fact that many are unfunded and will be forced to “settle out of court.” All cases are being filed in a Nevada Federal Court and must be fought in this jurisdiction. You are not safe from Righthaven if you are out-of-state.
- How Do I Avoid a Lawsuit?
How do end users of web content protest against this copyright troll outfit? We whip out the big First Amendment stick of Freedom of Association and boycott the RightHaven client media companies.
This article will focus on Windows operating system and a freeware program called HostsMan. I will give an Apple OS X alternative called GasMask but I have not personally used that software.”
Go after the advertisers who support LVRJ. Start draining their funds and they won ‘t be able to pay their employees.
send lawsuits for max americana to Hope N Change Obama, White House, washington DC.
One solution might be to submit the domains of Righthaven clients to various blacklists as sites to be blocked by proxy servers. Since they don’t seem to want traffic, we should help them out by making sure that users of proxies are kept from accessing their sites. This protects their valuable IP from prying eyes on the Internet and protects users from possible lawsuits. (After all, remembering what one has read may count as illicit copying!)
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