Free Republic

The takedown of the file-sharing site over copyright violations provides a warning about being careful where you store stuff. Megaupload file seizure shows why many cautious about the cloud Megaupload users are crying foul after their personal files, not necessarily copyright-infringing material, stored with the file-sharing service was seized on Thursday along with a trove of illegally distributed copyrighted works. Some of those users took to Twitter complaining about the loss of their files, as first reported by TorrentFreak. "I had files up there...gone forever..and they were personal recordings! No copyright infringement!" said Twitter user J. Amir. Another user complained...

The United States Supreme Court has ruled that a treaty did not exceed Congressional authority in the copyright clause of the Constitution. In a Jan. 18 ruling on Golan v. Holder, the court held 6-2 that a treaty seeking to equalize copyright protection on an international basis, called the Uruguay Round Agreements Act, did not exceed ...

When the Obama administration announced on Saturday its opposition to major elements of two Congressional bills intended to curtail copyright violations on the Internet, the technology industry, which has been loudly fighting the proposed legislation, could declare victory. But few people in Silicon Valley or Hollywood consider the battle over. The Motion Picture Association of America, which represents Hollywood studios and is a principal proponent of the antipiracy legislation, suggested that it would continue to push the administration to approve a modified version of the bills, known as the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect Intellectual Property Act. “Look...

A Sheffield student can be extradited to the US to face copyright infringement allegations, a judge has ruled. Richard O'Dwyer, 23, set up the TVShack website which US authorities say hosts links to pirated copyrighted films and television programmes. The Sheffield Hallam University student lost his case in a hearing at Westminster Magistrates' Court. If found guilty in a US court he could face up to five years in jail.

BEIJING - Nine Chinese writers sued Apple Inc for violating copyright and demanded compensation totaling 12 million yuan ($1.9 million). The move was the latest attempt by writers to protect their rights online as more readers turned to e-books, lawyers said. Beijing No 2 Intermediate People's Court has accepted the lawsuit jointly filed by Chinese writers like Han Han, Li Chengpeng and He Ma, an official at the court said on Monday. "The court is examining documents and materials provided by those writers, as each of them has his or her compensation requests," court official Li Zhitao said, adding the...

AP and 28 News Groups To Collect Fees From Aggregators The Associated Press and 28 other news organizations have launched a project to collect fees from aggregators who are reposting their content around the Web. The project, knowns as NewsRight, will be a separate business that will license original news from the media companies, and collect royalties from aggregators, according to Poynter. The project was formerly known as the News Registry and News Licensing Group, and has been in the pipeline for several years now.

Almost missed this one, but Eric Goldman alerts us to the dozen comments filed with the US Copyright Office concerning its plan to force everyone to keep re-registering their official DMCA agent in order to keep retaining the DMCA's safe harbors. As we've discussed in the past, in order to make use of the DMCA's safe harbors, you have to register an official DMCA agent with the Copyright Office. In fact, we've suggested that anyone running a blog or forum site do exactly that. Many of the companies that were successfully sued by Righthaven (before it was discovered Righthaven didn't...

The court-authorized dismantling of Las Vegas copyright company Righthaven LLC appeared to be under way Thursday, with the company losing control of its website to a receiver. As noted by the Righthaven Victims website critical of Righthaven, the righthaven.com website on Thursday was no longer operational and that domain name was “parked” at domain name hoster GoDaddy.com — apparently so it can be auctioned. Records at Network Solutions, which tracks domain names, showed control of Righthaven’s website domain name was transferred Wednesday to Randazza Legal Group, which represents Righthaven creditor Wayne Hoehn. However, attorney Marc Randazza said that information...

Copyright lawsuit filer Righthaven LLC of Las Vegas faced more problems Monday after a federal judge granted a defendant’s motion that Righthaven be placed under control of a receiver and that its copyrights be auctioned off, giving it nothing to sue or appeal over. U.S. District Judge Philip Pro granted the motion made by attorneys for defendant Wayne Hoehn, who said a receiver was needed to run the company and that its assets should be auctioned. That was after Righthaven failed to pay their attorney’s fees and U.S. Marshals were unable to round up enough Righthaven assets to cover their...

Look for changes in the proposed antipiracy legislation that has giants in the entertainment and technology industries squared off against each other, but nothing extensive enough to please all of the legislation's opponents. That was the message from Michael O'Leary, the senior executive vice president for global policy and external affairs of the Motion Picture Association of America, during a telephone news briefing on Wednesday. "We will come forward with language that will address some of the legitimate concerns" of technology companies that have opposed the Stop Online Piracy Act in the House, and a similar Protect I.P. Act in...

The worst bill in Internet history is about to become law. This bill is a workaround to net neutrality and is bigger than net neutrality. PROTECT IP (S. 968)/SOPA (HR. 3261) creates the first system for Internet censorship - this bill has sweeping provisions that give the government and corporations leeway and legal cover for taking down sites. This is the worst piece of Internet legislation in history - the lawmakers who have been sponsoring (Leahy, Lamar Smith, Conyers) are wasting taxpayer dollars on a bill that would break the very fabric of the Internet, create an Internet blacklist, kill...

A must read for bloggers of all stripes: how Donald Douglas from American Power  whupped the copyright trolls in court... 'Beating Righthaven' -here-

Justin Bieber says Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar should be "locked up" and led away in "handcuffs!" And, we agree with him on this issue. The senator (pictured, right) is trying to pass the "Bieber Bill," which would ban people from singing other people's songs --specifically online, in places like YouTube. "Whomever she is she needs to know that I'm saying she needs to be locked up," he told Clear Channel's Kane of The Kane Show today. "I just think that's ridiculous."

WASHINGTON—Supreme Court justices riffed on artists from Shostakovich to Jimi Hendrix in arguments Wednesday about whether Congress can grant copyrights to works by foreign authors never before protected in the U.S. . Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, defending the law, said it brought the U.S. into a convention that can protect American intellectual property abroad and amounted to "the price of admission to the international system." Several justices, however, doubted that taking books and music by long-dead authors out of the public domain could promote the "progress" the Constitution sought to spur through copyright. .

Samsung targets iPhone 4S sales ban in France, Italy 9:29am EDT SEOUL (Reuters) - Samsung Electronics said it will file patent-infringement claims in France and Italy to ban the sale of Apple's new iPhone less than a day after it was unveiled, intensifying a legal battle between the two top brands. It will also file legal cases in other countries to stop the sale of the iPhone 4S after further review, the South Korean maker of Galaxy smartphones and tablets said in a statement. Samsung has emerged as a credible challenger to Apple's mobile devices and the two companies are...

In what is becoming a well-settled pattern, Righthaven again finds itself on the losing end of a motion, with its case thrown out and owing the defendant – here, Leland Wolf, proprietor of the It Makes Sense Blog – costs and attorneys' fees for bringing a baseless copyright case. The lawsuit, Righthaven v. Wolf, is also notable for being the leading case among more than 50 that were filed in Colorado. Pending a motion to dismiss, the Colorado court stayed the remaining cases. With this ruling, the court has hopefully rung the death knell for the other remaining live cases...

Copyright troll Righthaven's flawed business model—suing hundreds of bloggers and small websites for dubious cases of alleged copyright infringement of newspaper articles—appears to be grinding to an inexorable finish. But even as the Righthaven cases prove that litigation isn't going to magically make print media profitable in the age of the Internet, a new generation of journalists and creators are adapting to the digital world—including one of Righthaven's former clients. Last week, reports were circulating that Righthaven was on "life support" after admitting that they aren't currently filing more lawsuits and are apparently teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. Even...

Despite its backing by the billionaire Warren Stephens family, Las Vegas copyright lawsuit filer Righthaven LLC warned today it may have to file for bankruptcy because of a series of setbacks in its litigation campaign. The warning came in an emergency request by Righthaven to a federal judge in Las Vegas that he stay his order that Righthaven pay $34,045 in legal fees to attorneys who successfully defended Kentucky message board poster Wayne Hoehn against a Righthaven lawsuit. Righthaven has already appealed U.S. District Judge Philip Pro’s fee award to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Righthaven is also...

Since their release in 1978, hit albums like Bruce Springsteen’s “Darkness on the Edge of Town,” Billy Joel’s “52nd Street,” the Doobie Brothers’ “Minute by Minute,” Kenny Rogers’s “Gambler” and Funkadelic’s “One Nation Under a Groove” have generated tens of millions of dollars for record companies. But thanks to a little-noted provision in United States copyright law, those artists — and thousands more — now have the right to reclaim ownership of their recordings, potentially leaving the labels out in the cold. When copyright law was revised in the mid-1970s, musicians, like creators of other works of art, were granted...

In yet another stunning reversal for Las Vegas copyright lawsuit filer Righthaven LLC, the company won’t be collecting any damages from a man it once branded as a copyright infringer. Instead, it’s Righthaven that must pay the man's legal fees of $34,045. U.S. District Judge Philip Pro awarded the fees Monday in the case of Kentucky message board poster Wayne Hoehn. Pro on June 20 dismissed Righthaven’s lawsuit against Hoehn, finding Righthaven didn’t have standing to sue him and even if it did, Hoehn was protected by the fair use doctrine in posting an entire Las Vegas Review-Journal column on...

Yes, another day and another judicial smackdown for Righthaven. In the case before Judge Roger Hunt, where he dismissed Righthaven for its sham copyright assignment claims and threatened sanctions against the company, it appears that Judge Hunt was not convinced by Righthaven's grovelling, that it was all the fault of former in-house attorneys, who failed to disclose that Stephens Media had a 50% stake in the outcome of any of these lawsuits. Hunt has gone forward with the sanctions, telling Righthaven to pay $5,000 for misleading the court. It seems that defendants in the 200+ other lawsuits now have reasons...

I’m old enough to remember a time before the Internet. I know what it’s like to develop software both with and without a worldwide network. Little has changed with the process of software development since the 1980’s. Of course there have been improvements in our tools and techniques, but the basic act of creating software products is much the same. What has changed dramatically in the past 30 years is how we distribute our creations. In the days where software was distributed on magnetic media, such as reels of tape, cassettes, or floppy disks, it cost a lot of money...

The copyright infringement lawsuit campaign of Righthaven LLC of Las Vegas faces new attacks by three defendants. Since March 2010, Righthaven has filed 274 federal lawsuits alleging online copyright infringement of material from the Las Vegas Review-Journal and the Denver Post. Righthaven’s no-warning lawsuit campaign has been marred by three fair use losses since October, as well as rulings last month throwing out four lawsuits on a standing issue and a judge’s threat of sanctions against Righthaven over alleged misrepresentations.

A federal judge ruled in favor of a defendant who reposted an entire article in a copyright case on Monday, Wired reports. The lawsuit was brought by Righthaven, a Las Vegas-based “copyright litigation factory,” according to Wired, that has sued more than 200 websites, bloggers, and commenters for copyright infringement. This particular lawsuit targeted Wayne Hoehn, who posted an entire editorial from the Las Vegas Review-Journal and its headline, “Public Employee Pensions: We Can’t Afford Them” on a website medjacksports.com. Hoehn was not an employee of the site.

A Kentucky man did not infringe on a copyright when he posted an entire Las Vegas Review-Journal column on a message board without authorization, a federal judge ruled today. The ruling by U.S. District Judge Philip Pro in Las Vegas on fair use grounds is the third fair use loss for Righthaven LLC, which sues over Las Vegas Review-Journal and Denver Post material. Earlier losses over Review-Journal material involved entire and partial R-J stories. Pro today dismissed a Righthaven lawsuit against Wayne Hoehn on grounds that Righthaven lacks standing to sue over Review-Journal material, as already determined by another federal...

A federal judge in Las Vegas today issued a potentially devastating ruling against copyright enforcer Righthaven LLC, finding it doesn't have standing to sue over Las Vegas Review-Journal stories, that it has misled the court and threatening to impose sanctions against Righthaven. Because he found Righthaven doesn't have standing to sue, Chief U.S. District Judge for Nevada Roger Hunt dismissed Righthaven's copyright infringement lawsuit against the Democratic Underground.

The 18 Senators Who Approve Breaking The Internet To Protect Hollywood from the not-cool dept Last fall, we noted that the Senate Judiciary Committee had unanimously voted to approve COICA, a bill for censoring the internet as a favor to the entertainment industry. Thankfully, Senator Ron Wyden stepped up and blocked COICA from progressing. This year, COICA has been replaced by the PROTECT IP Act, which fixes some of the problems of COICA, but introduces significant other problems as well. A wide cross section of people who actually understand technology and innovation have come out against PROTECT IP as written...

Please do not post anything from aviationweek.com or anything written by Fred George per his copyright complaint.

A federal judge in Colorado today said there are serious questions about the validity of the Righthaven LLC/Denver Post copyright infringement lawsuits there, and he put them all on hold. Senior U.S. District Judge John Kane in Denver said in orders filed in the cases that because of challenges to Las Vegas-based Righthaven’s standing to sue there over Denver Post material, he wants to resolve that issue before proceeding. "Because there are serious questions as to whether my exercise of subject matter jurisdiction over Righthaven’s claim of copyright infringement is proper, I think it most prudent to stay the proceedings...

Las Vegas newspaper copyright enforcement company Righthaven LLC’s standing to file lawsuits is being challenged again, this time in Colorado. Righthaven since March 2010 has filed 274 lawsuits alleging copyright infringement against website operators, bloggers and message board posters. It sues over Las Vegas Review-Journal and Denver Post material. Its standing to sue is under attack in several cases and U.S. District Judge James Mahan in Las Vegas has said that under its lawsuit contract with the Review-Journal, Righthaven does not appear to have standing to sue. Mahan has rescheduled until next month a hearing on that issue. Defense attorneys...

This Article explains that certain features of U.S. law, particularly copyright law, contributed to Google’s willingness to undertake the Google Book Search (GBS) project in the first place and later to its motivation to settle the lawsuit charging Google with copyright infringement for scanning in-copyright books. Approval of this settlement would achieve several copyright reforms that Congress might find difficult to accomplish, some of which would be in the public interest. This Article considers whether the quasi-legislative nature of the GBS settlement is merely an interesting side effect of the agreement or a reason in favor of or against approval...

This article was pulled for copyright violationhttp://004eeb5.netsolhost.com/hc133.htmI have searched the list of copyright complainants on the FR main page and "NorthStar Writers Group" is nowhere in evidence.Can I post this article?Can I link to it from within a thread?How can I point Freepers to the specific statements made by Herman Cain in this article, some of which he may now regret??

Hugh Pickens writes "Judge Roger Hunt has unsealed the confidential agreement between Righthaven and the Las Vegas Review-Journal that has allowed Righthaven to sue over more than 250 charities, impoverished hobby bloggers, reporters, and the newspaper's own sources, for $150,000 each in damages and forfeiture of the sites' domain names, and the contents of the agreement could end up being ruinous for Righthaven's campaign of copyright lawsuits. The problem is that Stephens Media, the company that owns the Las Vegas Review-Journal, didn't actually assign any of the rights related to copyright to Righthaven except the right to sue — and...

A federal judge in Las Vegas on Friday unsealed the agreement for prosecuting copyright infringement lawsuits between Righthaven LLC and Las Vegas Review-Journal owner Stephens Media LLC. As expected, the Jan. 18, 2010, Strategic Alliance Agreement shows the previously-confidential deal calls for Stephens Media to receive a cut of Righthaven's lawsuit proceeds, minus costs. That cut is 50 percent. Over the objections of Righthaven and Stephens Media, Chief U.S. District Judge for Nevada Roger Hunt issued an order allowing the public to see the agreement allowing for copyrights from Stephens Media to be assigned to Righthaven for lawsuit purposes.

Happier times... The National Enquirer -which first broke the Edwards/Hunter scandal in 2007- is now reporting that those close to the foolhardy egomaniac say he's lost 20lbs... is a "broken spirit" who's drinking heavily... and even entertains suicidal thoughts now that a trip to the Gray Bar Hotel seems possible- if not likely. Of particular concern is John Edward's former staffer Andrew Young, who's actually got an Edwards "sex tape" -for which Rielle Hunter is now suing- and wrote a book (published in February) regarding a cover-up that once had him claiming to be father of Edwards' and Hunter's love...

Las Vegas-based lawfirm Righthaven has been suing everyone from bloggers to commenters -- anyone who has posted even a portion of the text or images to which it owns the rights. Righthaven doesn't actually make anything, they just buy the rights to stories and images that have gone viral on the web. Now, according to the Las Vegas Sun, Righthaven has scored what Ars Technica aptly describes as an "own goal": Not only did a Federal judge reject Righthaven's case against the non-profit Center for Intercultural Organizing, the judge also declared that non-profits may re-print entire articles from news outlets...

One year ago, U.S. newspapers and broadcasters could feel confident they controlled the news content they created. It was understood that competing and special-interest websites couldn't appropriate that content and post it without authorization. When such infringements occurred, they were dealt with swiftly and effectively with a simple phone call or email. Infringing websites typically had re-posted material out of ignorance they were violating the Copyright Act and agreed to remove the material or replace it with a link to the source newspaper or broadcaster. Then along came Righthaven LLC of Las Vegas, the self-appointed protector of the newspaper industry...

An Oregon nonprofit did not infringe on copyrights when it posted without authorization an entire Las Vegas Review-Journal story on its website, a judge ruled Friday. U.S. District Judge James Mahan said during a hearing he planned to dismiss, on fair use grounds, a copyright infringement lawsuit filed against the Center for Intercultural Organizing (CIO), in Portland, Ore. The lawsuit was filed last year by Righthaven LLC of Las Vegas, the Review-Journal's copyright enforcement partner that also enforces copyrights for the Denver Post.

A group of South Carolina attorneys is putting up the stiffest resistance yet to a Righthaven LLC copyright infringement lawsuit, threatening Friday to press for sanctions against Las Vegas-based Righthaven and to hit it with a malicious prosecution claim. Righthaven is a company that has filed at least 239 copyright infringement lawsuits since March over copyrights it obtained from the Las Vegas Review-Journal and the Denver Post. The South Carolina attorneys filed a counterclaim Friday in Charleston, S.C., federal court against Righthaven that, among other things, accuses Righthaven of violating South Carolina’s Unfair Trade Practices Act when it sued Dana...

Las Vegas copyright enforcement company Righthaven LLC is asking the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn an order dismissing one of its lawsuits on fair use grounds. Righthaven, which sues over Las Vegas Review-Journal and Denver Post material, has since March sued at least 238 website operators and message-board posters, charging they displayed on their websites material from those newspapers without authorization. In October, the litigation campaign suffered a setback when U.S. District Judge Larry Hicks in Reno dismissed a lawsuit against Las Vegas real estate agent Michael Nelson. Hicks found the online posting by Nelson of the...

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.

Righthaven founder Steve Gibson is going after copyright infringers using the murky legal definition of fair use to power a sue-first strategy. Yet with sharing tools booming online, could clicking a Like button lead to a lawsuit? Every year billions in wagers are laid down in the gambling halls of Las Vegas. Last spring, however, one local company, Righthaven LLC, started a new game by betting on the unlikeliest of entities in the local courts — print media. By aggressively suing alleged copyright infringers, Righthaven has taken the shooter position in an consequential game of craps that is sure to...

German kindergartens told to pay before they sing BERLIN — A body representing German musicians found itself accused of Scrooge-like meanness on Tuesday after pressing kindergartens to pay up for singing songs that are protected by copyright. The GEMA, the German musical copyright monitoring body, has written to 36,000 of the nursery schools telling them they have to fork out to photocopy song texts and to keep a proper record of which ones are sung. Kindergartens and MPs were incensed, with the mass-circulation Bild daily calling the move "bureaucratic madness." A spokeswoman for the Paritaetischer Wohlfahrtsverband Hamburg, an association representing...

http://www.lvrj.com/blogs/sherm/Update_on_Internet_content_stealing.html?ref=049 Fair use quotes: "How dare newspapers try to protect their unique content. It is ours to use for free." Or, at least that's how I read this "report" from Mike Masnick of "TechDirt". The writer concludes: "Still, all this is doing is making me wonder why anyone would ever want to use any Righthaven connected publication as a source ever again." If when he says "use" he means "use without permission", then I agree with him. End Sherman Frederick quotes. In the meantime, Sherman Frederick posts copyrighted material to his own blog hosted by the Las Vegas Review Journal:...

Former Las Vegas Journal Review publisher and Stephens Media CEO Sherman Frederick was the main champion behind Righthaven. Early on he was the one who explained (in bizarre, nonsensical terms) why the LVRJ was funding and supporting Righthaven, and mocked those who pointed out the ridiculousness of his position. Part of his reasoning was that putting copyright infringing content on your website or blog is absolutely no different than stealing the Corvette out of his driveway. Even if we ignore how this is completely wrong (someone copying content doesn't remove that content from his site, and he still has the...

You have to go through Google because of posting rules.

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...

Bloggers already know of the association between Barack Obama, Michelle Obama and Steve Gibson. The latter's Righthaven firm has launched a legal war on websites over alleged copyright infringement. All three worked for Chicago Law firm Sidley Austin LLP, where Gibson and Michelle Obama coincidentally specialized in copyright-related "intellectual property" law for the firm. I've just uncovered a further Obama link to this new copyright war. Just two weeks ago Detroit-based Dickinson Wright PLLC acquired Steven Gibson's Las Vegas-based legal firm of Gibson Lowry Burris LLP, with Gibson becoming managing partner of what is now Dickinson's Las Vegas office.

Las Vegas copyright enforcement company Righthaven LLC on Wednesday filed its second copyright infringement lawsuit over Denver Post material, this time suing a big target: Drudge Report operator Matt Drudge. The suit, filed in U.S. District Court for Nevada, charges a Nov. 18 Denver Post "illustration" called "Transportation Security Administration agents perform enhanced pat-downs" was posted without authorization the same day on the Drudge Report website as well as the drudgereportarchives.com site. A court exhibit, however, indicates the illustration is actually a Denver Post photograph of a TSA officer patting down a passenger at Denver International Airport. Righthaven usually sues...

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...