Four more copyright lawsuits filed over photo

Las Vegas Sun ^ | Saturday, Jan. 22, 2011 | 2:05 a.m. | By Steve Green

[redreno]

Just as it’s a lightning rod for controversy, the Transportation Security Administration may turn into a litigation gold mine for Las Vegas newspaper copyright enforcement company Righthaven LLC.

Righthaven has been suing website operators and message-board posters over material allegedly posted online without authorization from the Las Vegas Review-Journal and the Denver Post.

Four of its most recent copyright infringement lawsuits this week were over the same Nov. 18 Denver Post photo of a TSA officer patting down the inner thighs of a passenger at Denver International Airport.

This is the same photo Righthaven sued Matt Drudge of the Drudge Report over on Dec. 8.

Drudge has not yet answered that lawsuit and it’s unknown if he’s been served.

[RummyChick]

Drudge probably should pay for the photos he uses. His site is a commercial site even though all he does is link to websites with his own only comments being the titles in the links.

There aren’t many sites like his with the power that he has. It’s an interesting story in the history of the internet ...and politics.

But this whole issue is a slippery slope.

[McBuff]

I too have always wondered if it was slanderous to call these people low life scum sucking parasites that have sex with there brothers. If I hear anything about it, I’ll let you know

[RummyChick]

Did the EFF help out this site when it got sued?

[EternalVigilance]

I don’t think so.

I do know they’re representing DU. They counter-sued.

[Safrguns]

So where’s the photo?... hehe ;)

[Grampa Dave]

Thanks for your great research. Now we understand where these $uers are coming from:

“The Stephens family of Arkansas, the owners of the LVJR and bankrollers of Righthaven, were the primary financiers of Bill Clinton’s political career. In fact, without them, there would have been no Bill Clinton, politically-speaking.

Stephen Gibson of Righthaven once worked at the same law firm in Chicago as the Obamas. I’m pretty sure he was in the same department as Michelle, at the same time.

One of the Michigan lawyers who has bought into Righthaven went to Harvard with Barack Obama and raised him more than a quarter million dollars in 2008. He met personally with the alleged president not that long ago, too.

I’ll leave you to draw your own conclusions as to the meaning of all that.”

[Richard Kimball]

If a company doesn’t want its copywrited material used, AT ALL, then isn’t there are way to subvert the copy paste?

Yes there is, but it's hardly foolproof. You can open the image in a new tab, drag it to the desktop and host it on another site, and if that fails, do a screen capture and then crop to the image.

In practical terms, doing this will prevent most use, BUT in legal terms, it's like claiming a jeweler should have had bulletproof glass if he didn't want someone to shoot out the window and steal things.

[ol painless]

Not if you state that it is your opinion. Listening to talk radio I always hear:

In my opinion ..............

and

Allegedly ......................

There is a good reason they say that. Everybody is entitled to voice their opinion.

[muawiyah]

Taking a picture for commercial use of a TSA officer on duty in uniform at his place of work (a government owned building of all things) requires a release from TSA, and possibly other agencies.

I think Righthaven could be sent to prison for a very long time over this one ~ if they want to keep pushing the issue.

[apoliticalone]

When it comes to tin foil hats we’d all be smart to keep one around because it pays to very skeptical of what we read, what we see happen, and what we’re told because manipulation of the masses has become a scientific art form, but only because it works so well.

[brityank]

... it sure doesn’t seem to me to be within the intent of the original copyright laws.

You can thank Sonny Bono and others before and after for the damage done to those original rights. The ONLY Right listed in the Constitution itself is a Property Right:

Article I Section 8 Clause 8 - To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

The expected lifetime of such was a generation, 14 years plus one extension.

[roadcat]

If a company doesn’t want its copywrited material used, AT ALL, then isn’t there are way to subvert the copy paste?

I don't think so. If you can see it displayed on your screen, you can use a screen-grabber to capture the image. Images that disable ordinary save functions can still be captured by 3rd-party screen-grabber apps.

[Seruzawa]

Notice that the copyright only extends to the author or inventor. Not to their grandchildren or bosses or lawyers.

[brityank]

Right of ownership also allows right to assign or be claimed by any heirs. The big problem is that the excessive time that has been attached, far beyond what should be considered reasonable.