Free Republic

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...

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...

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...

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...