Judge Considering Innocent Infringement Provision For Cat Blogger Sued By Righthaven
from the just-dismiss-the-case dept
The Righthaven saga continues. The Las Vegas Sun (who seems to be having fun reporting daily on this operation set up by its competitor), is noting that in the first court hearing on a Righthaven lawsuit, the judge appeared to want to figure out the absolute smallest sum that he could set for an unemployed, non-commercial cat blogger (written from the perspective of a cat) who was sued by Righthaven for posting an article, with a link and credit, about a fire that killed some birds. The magistrate judge clearly wanted the two sides to settle quickly, and kept pushing Righthaven boss Steven Gibson on how much it actually cost to file one of these lawsuits, and even challenged his initial claim of $1,800, and got him to push the number lower. The judge also brought up the potential of awarding $200 in damages — which is the amount allowed for cases of innocent infringement. It seems pretty clear that the magistrate judge is not impressed with at least this lawsuit.
Separately, the article notes that the WEHCO Media newspaper chain — apparently totally and completely oblivious to the massive negative publicity Righthaven has generated for the Las Vegas Review-Journal — has become the second media company to sign up for Righthaven’s brand of “copyright enforcement.” Paul Smith, the President of WEHCO apparently said:
“It’s a pretty serious matter when someone takes your copy, information you’ve spent a lot of money to produce.”
To which we wonder if he even realizes what Righthaven does. First of all, having a random blog or forum repost your content with a link back to you isn’t “a pretty serious matter.” It’s someone giving you some attention. It’s certainly not taking anything away from you. Anyway, if you want a list of newspapers not to link to, WEHCO publishes the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (and the NW Arkansas Democrat-Gazette), the Benton County Daily Record, the California Democrat, the Chattanooga Times Free Press, the Fulton Sun, the News Tribune, the NW Arkansas Times, the Rogers Morning News, the Springdale Morning News, the Banner News, Camden News, El Dorado News-Times, the Texarkana Gazette and The Sentinel-Record. Apparently none of those papers want you alerting anyone to the news they publish.
Filed Under: blogs, cat blogger, copyright, innocent infringement
Companies: righthaven
Comments on “Judge Considering Innocent Infringement Provision For Cat Blogger Sued By Righthaven”
Suing LoLCats is low.
Stop reading the Righthaven and bring the financial pain on now!
Is it really infringement if you have a link giving them the credit?
I am definitely not a lawyer, but i remember back in school if i were to copy something for a school paper (and my kids do this today also), i would have to copy (link) all of the person’s information that i was copying to make a point.
If our schools are teaching us to give proper credit to those we talk about, how is that infringement?
Or mabe im just plain dumb
Re: Re:
You’re confusing “infringement” with “plagiarism.” It’s a pretty common mistake.
Re: Re: Re:
He’s not confusing anything. Plagiarism = infringement.
See below (from Wikipedia):
Generally, although plagiarism is often loosely referred to as theft or stealing, it has not been set as a criminal matter in the courts.[6] Likewise, plagiarism has no standing as a criminal offense in the common law. Instead, claims of plagiarism are a civil law matter, which an aggrieved person can resolve by launching a lawsuit. Acts that may constitute plagiarism are in some instances treated as copyright infringement, unfair competition, or a violation of the doctrine of moral rights. The increased availability of intellectual property due to a rise in technology has furthered the debate as to whether copyright offenses are criminal.
Academia
In the academic world, plagiarism by students is a very serious offense that can result in punishments such as a failing grade on the particular assignment (typically at the high school level) or for the course (typically at the college or university level). For cases of repeated plagiarism, or for cases in which a student commits severe plagiarism (e.g., submitting a copied article as his or her own work), a student may be suspended or expelled.
Source(s):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plagiarism
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Infringement can happen without plagiarism, as in this case which is what the OP was discussing and confused the 2. Plagiarism is infringement only if you copy as part of claiming you had written something.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
The incorrectness of your thesis is proven by quotation you yourself used:
Acts that may constitute plagiarism are in some instances treated as copyright infringement, unfair competition, or a violation of the doctrine of moral rights.
in truth the set of instances of plagiarism intersects the set of instances of copyright infringement.
eg
Copying your essay from a fellow student with his permission or from a public domain work is plagiarism but ht infringement.
Copying and selling a complete book – leaving the author’s attributions in place is copyright infringement but not plagiarism.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
Besides that, I don’t particularly like the wording in the WP article. Plagiarism can’t really be “treated as” copyright infringement. The same act can be both plagiarism and infringement, but that doesn’t mean the plagiarism is being treated as infringement, it just means the legal action is based on the infringement rather than the plagiarism. Splitting hairs maybe, but I think that turn of phrase confuses the issue (and confuses Bubba Gump).
Re: Re:
Is it really infringement if you have a link giving them the credit?
Yes, yes it is.
I am definitely not a lawyer, but i remember back in school if i were to copy something for a school paper (and my kids do this today also), i would have to copy (link) all of the person’s information that i was copying to make a point.
You’re confusing plagiarism with infringement. The two may overlap, but they’re different.
At some point it's not fair use
Apparently none of those papers want you alerting anyone to the news they publish.
Just once I would like you to take the side of the content creators. Posting the entire article with a link is doing much more than “alerting”. It pretty much drains the revenue stream of the content creator.
So I dare you. Point out some kind of infringement that you think is worth suing over. I bet you can’t do it. You’re so biased against content producers that you would call raping a young writer a free gyn exam.
Re: At some point it's not fair use
But haven’t you heard? All people who enforce their rights are bad. Mike’s got alternative business models, for heaven’s sake. 😉
Re: Re: At some point it's not fair use
Like selling t-shirts. I wonder if someone copys the TechDirt t-shirt logo and sells them for less. Will Mike sue?
Re: Re: Re: At some point it's not fair use
When you invent a t-shirt cloning device, you may not look like such an idiot.
Re: Re: Re: At some point it's not fair use
You do realize that TechDirt t-shirts are a form of advertisement, so in the end you’d only generate more money for TechDirt.
Re: Re: Re:2 At some point it's not fair use
Sure, it’s advertisement but it’s one of the things that this blog has tried to sell to bolster its bottom line. That’s what he means when he says give the fans “reason to buy”. The fans need a thing and he’s tried to balance the books by selling t-shirts. But how many t-shirts does the world need?
Re: Re: Re: At some point it's not fair use
Like selling t-shirts. I wonder if someone copys the TechDirt t-shirt logo and sells them for less. Will Mike sue?
When we sold our DMCA shirts, amusingly, someone put up copycat shirts on eBay (crappy quality, though), and we thought it was funny. If others want to go through the trouble of helping to advertise us, that’s cool.
Only thing we would have an issue with is if it’s trademark infringement to the point of customer confusion — as, again, likelihood of confusion trademark cases do make sense.
Re: Re: Re:2 At some point it's not fair use
Cute dodge, but the t-shirts weren’t just advertisements. They were a form of revenue that were supposed to give supporters reason to buy. Infringement robs you of that.
Re: Re: Re:3 At some point it's not fair use
How?
You don’t understand how people discover things do you?
She may or may not copied the article in the entirety, I didn’t see that anywhere, but for the sake of argument lets assume she copied verbatim, and put a link on it.
People who liked the story and that happens go to the original source and bookmark that crap, this is how I discovered this site here and a lot of others, people disseminate information.
For all you know she could have helped that crappy news outlet get some more readers, you can’t prove harm, but you say it harms it, please show us the proof now or just admit that you are talking through your ass.
Re: Re: Re:3 At some point it's not fair use
It doesn’t cost Mike money to make all those “fake” t-shirts.
It also gets additional advertisement for the site.
It could be argued that the more people buy the “fake” t-shirts, less people will buy the real ones. Which is silly, since the only people that are going to buy the real ones anyway are those who want to support this site and get a real souvenir (not even taking into account production quality).
The only other complaint could be, that people could think Mike sells low quality products while it’s another company that is doing it. Which is, I think, one of the things that Consumer Confusion covers… the other “confusion” which is the one that most people flaunt, would be people actually believing they’re buying the website.
Re: Re: At some point it's not fair use
The alternative?
Run your business to the ground as popular backlash will have lasting effects on your bottom line.
It is worth it?
Sure, assert aggressively supposed rights over imaginary products and this will weed out the weak that in this case is the news corporations.
Things have changed, and you can burry your head on the sand or you can be flexible and bend or be rigid and break.
The law is nothing without the people’s respect for it.
Re: At some point it's not fair use
“So I dare you. Point out some kind of infringement that you think is worth suing over. I bet you can’t do it. You’re so biased against content producers that you would call raping a young writer a free gyn exam.”
Ok Bob… here’s an example.
Someone takes my book. They OCR it and remove all references to me and then publish it as their own.
That’a pretty blatant violation of copyright. I have no problem suing them.
If they grab a chapter (or more) from my book and post it somewhere, giving me credit and pointing people to Amazon/B&N/my site so they can buy a physical copy (or Kindle, etc.) that’s fine with me.
Posting an article with a link back, when the Journal itself encourages them to do so?
Re: Re: At some point it's not fair use
Ah, so you’re saying it’s okay for me to take a book, reprint it and publish it as my own as long as I don’t remove all references to the author? Would it be sufficient to include an author’s note saying, “Someone else did all of the writing. I just helped pick the font?”
I find it hilarious that people think just giving someone credit is a fair trade. This woman was too busy to do her own work and so she just grabbed someone else’s to fill out her blog. Anyone can keep the blog filled if they let someone else do the work.
When people read the story on another site, they’re not likely to click through to read it again. Moreover, they won’t even read it if they happen to go to the original newspaper site again.
Re: Re: Re: At some point it's not fair use
“When people read the story on another site, they’re not likely to click through to read it again. Moreover, they won’t even read it if they happen to go to the original newspaper site again.”
How do you know that?
Most sites I discovered and bookmarked to read later was through links, people may not have read that article again, but if they liked the tone of the copied article they could have gone to the original link and take a peek around to see what else was there, that is how people discover things.
It is not possible that crappy news outlet got some new readers from it?
Where are the F. harm then?
Re: Re: Re: At some point it's not fair use
“Ah, so you’re saying it’s okay for me to take a book, reprint it and publish it as my own as long as I don’t remove all references to the author?”
Sure. Take mine. It’s called Echelon. You can find it on DocStoc and/or Scribd, or on my blog, http://www.conspiracyfiction.blogspot.com. Send it to whoever you like, reprint it all you like, do whatever you want with it, just keep my name on it.
That should help generate more interest in my Kickstarter project, so have it….
Re: At some point it's not fair use
Point out some kind of infringement that you think is worth suing over.
Point out a case where suing for infringement has resulted in a net overall gain.
Re: Re: At some point it's not fair use
You’re not serious, are you? Do you really think there isn’t a single infringement case where the plaintiff netted a gain?
Re: Re: Re: At some point it's not fair use
There are plenty of examples. The MP3 case yielded a $100m judgement. The Napster case brought plenty. Or consider Lowrys Reports versus Legg Mason, the brokerage firm that bought one copy of Lowrys newsletter and photocopied it for all of the brokers. Lowrys collected $20m.
http://www.lowrysreports.com/complaint.cfm
The reason that Mike is screaming about the law suits is that the plaintiffs stand a good chance of winning and all of his buddies want to live in a world where they never pay anything to content producers. No one would care if copyright law didn’t have some teeth after the content producers jump through all of the hoops to enforce it.
Re: Re: Re:2 At some point it's not fair use
I meant an overall gain – sure you might make a return in the courts – although the RIAA has so far failed to do that with its lawsuits.
But when you take into account the damage that it does to your business….
Re: Re: Re:3 At some point it's not fair use
How do you know that the RIAA hasn’t had any overall gain? All of my friends have thousands of dollars of free music on their iPods. If there weren’t a threat of being sued, I’m sure that the original Napster would have strangled iTunes before it was born. The only reason the music publishers make any money at all now is because the RIAA makes it economically rational for people to pay for music.
Re: Re: Re:4 At some point it's not fair use
There is just one problem, you don’t know that.
Re: Re: Re:2 At some point it's not fair use
Fine so nobody linking to the Reveiw Journal is better then?
That is fine by me, who cares about that newspaper anyway, I don’t and I have no problem not ever linking to that news outlet ever and I will put them on the blacklist.
That gave me a great idea, a list of news outlets that should be blocked by the firewall, would they complain about it?
For anyone who wants to add that site to the filter here is the webaddress.
http://www.lvrj.com/
http://www.reviewjournal.com/about/print/rjstaff.html
And here is a list of all the holdings people should boycott.
Newspapers
Arkansas
* Booneville Democrat – Booneville, AR
* Cabot Star-Herald – Cabot, AR
o Cabot Weekly
* Carlisle Independent – Carlisle, AR
* Charleston Express – Charleston, AR
* Fayetteville Free Weekly – Fayetteville, AR
* Greenwood Democrat – Greenwood, AR
* Hot Springs Village Voice – Hot Springs Village, AR
* Jacksonville Patriot – Jacksonville, AR
* Lonoke Democrat – Lonoke, AR
* Morning News of Northwest Arkansas – Springdale, AR
* Paris Express – Paris, AR
* Pine Bluff Commercial – Pine Bluff, AR
o The Market Place
o The White Hall Progress
* Press Argus Courier – Van Buren, AR
o Alma Journal
* Sherwood Voice – Sherwood, AR
* Southwest Times Record – Fort Smith, AR
* The Maumelle Monitor – Maumelle, AR
* The Times – North Little Rock, AR
* Van Buren County Democrat – Clinton AR
* Washington County Newspapers
o The Lincoln Leader
o The Prairie Grove Enterprise
o The Farmington Post
Hawaii
* 808 Classifieds – Hilo, HI
* Big Island Weekly – Hilo, HI
* Hawaii Tribune-Herald – Hilo, HI
* North Hawaii News – Waimea, HI
* West Hawaii Today – Kailua-Kona, HI
o North Hawaii News
o Big Island, HI
o Westside Weekly
Missouri
* McDonald County Newspapers
o The Anderson Graphic The Goodman News-Dispatch
o The McDonald County News-Gazette
o The McDonald County Press
o The Southwest City Republic
o El Tiempo
Nevada
* Ely Times – Ely, NV
* Eureka Sentinel – Eureka, NV
* Las Vegas Review-Journal – Las Vegas, NV
o View Neighborhood Newspapers
o El Tiempo
o Las Vegas CityLife
o Las Vegas Business Press
o Rebel Nation
o New Homes Guide
o Luxury Las Vegas
o Southern Nevada Home And Garden Magazine
o Nifty Nickel
o Neighborhood Shopper
o Jobs Today Weekly
* Pahrump Valley Times – Pahrump, NV
* Tonopah Times-Bonanza – Tonopah, NV
North Carolina
* Courier-Tribune – Asheboro, NC
Oklahoma
* Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise – Bartlesville, OK
* Pawhuska Journal-Capital – Pawhuska, OK
Tennessee
* The Daily Herald – Columbia, TN
o The Advertiser News Of Spring Hill And Thompson’s Station
o Franklin Life
o Brentwood Life
Texas
* Anna-Melissa Tribune – Anna, TX
* Herald Democrat – Sherman, TX
o Grayson County Shopper
* Lake Texoma Life – Van Alstyne, TX
* Prosper Press – Prosper, TX
* Van Alstyne Leader – Van Alstyne, TX
Washington
* The Daily World – Aberdeen, WA
o The North Coast News
o The South Beach Bulletin
o East County News
* The Montesano Vidette – Montesano, WA
Re: Re: Re:2 At some point it's not fair use
That $20m was appealed – and the final settlement was confidential – so technically you can’t know how much Lowry’s actually received.
You also don’t know the overall effect, long term, on Lowrys – since the legal action can’t have left a good “taste in the mouth” for their customers.
Plausibly Lowrys would have been better off if they had offered corporate subscriptions – like for example this firm.
It would have spared everyone a lot of grief – and they might have made more from the corporate subscriptions than they did from the lawsuit (I doubt if Legg Mason were the only fiorm that copied their newsletter internally.)
Re: Re: Re:3 At some point it's not fair use
The settlement could have even been higher. Lowrys cherry picked the best examples of infringement and in the end the court only awarded damaged based on 200 or so cases. If I were Lowrys lawyers, I would have sat down with Legg and threatened to sue again with the next tier of more tenuous examples.
Re: Re: Re:2 At some point it's not fair use
The reason that Mike is screaming about the law suits is that the plaintiffs stand a good chance of winning and all of his buddies want to live in a world where they never pay anything to content producers.
Huh? Not at all. I’m all in favor of paying content producers. That’s why I spend so much time trying to help them come up with good business models.
You must have me confused with someone else.
Re: At some point it's not fair use
So many times when I’ve posted a link and credited someone in forums about something I found interesting, until I was contacted very quickly by the creator saying I had drained them of their revenue. So many occasions I came close enough to bankrupting non-specific content creators of which their livelihood only consists of Google ads and gained no new regular readers from the posting nor had any before hand.
These days I refrain from posting links and crediting others until I get their permission, and even then only post the first sentence. Though I still wander – am I doing the right thing? I think about how much money they lose even from that one sentence and can’t sleep at night.
Trust me guys – it happens all the time. Don’t make the same mistakes I did. Don’t post links on blogs or forums.
Re: Re: At some point it's not fair use
This is a joke right? It’s so hard to come up with parody when the serious people are so far off the deep end.
Re: Re: Re: At some point it's not fair use
Of course it’s parody 🙂 Though I wouldn’t be surprised if someone seriously presented that either…
I wander just how many content creators who’s sole income is from ads and yet never get any money because they get linked and quoted all the time, I mean with the logic presented to the point where Google news is a problem for established, well known places, surely it must be common and happen all the time for the little guys right? Obviously if people like bob can seriously say that this is big enough problem to the point that it requires new law making, it must be happening all the time beyond mere hypothetical.
I doubt he’d be able to truly show that though.
Re: Re: Re:2 At some point it's not fair use
FYI, it’s not “wander”, it’s WONDER.
Re: Re: Re:3 At some point it's not fair use
Damn typos. Just pretend the a is an o, that makes it all better.
Re: At some point it's not fair use
“Just once I would like you to take the side of the content creators. Posting the entire article with a link is doing much more than “alerting”. It pretty much drains the revenue stream of the content creator. “
How do you figure its draining revenue? not behind a paywall (if it were it would be foolish to link to it really because people would have to pay to read it) so it must be ad revenue, right? Now think about this. 20 people read the blog, click on the link and 20 people who wouldn’t have normally been there are now reading the article AND viewing said ads on the page.
So now tell us, how is this hurting them? I am so confused in how you can just come on here and bash Mike without actually trying to have a good argument to bash him with.
Re: Re: At some point it's not fair use
Uh, genius when you reproduce the entire article or a large portion of it, there’s no reason for people to click through. What makes you think that people actually click through. How many people read the original article? It’s clear from reading many comments here and in other places like Slashdot that it’s a small percentage. So what makes you think that providing a link next to the entire text will actually generate sales or clicks or whatever?
Re: Re: Re: At some point it's not fair use
“Uh, genius when you reproduce the entire article or a large portion of it, there’s no reason for people to click through.”
Let’s see if I can explain how this works to you.
1. I create a blog post copying the entire (gasp!) article that I found interesting. At the end of the post, I write: “And here is where I found this great article that I found so valuable that I reprinted here for my readers – http://www.awesomewebsite.com
2. People read the reprinted article. They say to themself: “Self, this writing is really good in this article and I find it interesting. I sure would like to see more such articles. Oh look! A handy link to the source of the great writing I just read, where surely there are other such articles!”
3. Said person clicks the link.
4. They read more articles (if they’re of the same quality/interest) regularly, thereby creating more page views.
5. PROFIT!!!!
Make sense now? Or are you going to be argumentative and tell me how this isn’t right?
Re: Re: Re:2 At some point it's not fair use
Do you regularly click through after reading the entire story? Be honest. Or are you just like everyone else looking for a way to rationalize their piracy? I know plenty of people who say they’re just “tasting” a movie and if they really like it, “they’ll buy a real copy.” But then they never get around to really liking it. That’s why there are so many stories by the video game manufacturers who tried out these totally open, pay-what-you-want theories and found that the pirates didn’t buy after they tried.
Here’s one
http://games.slashdot.org/story/09/10/24/0136250/App-Store-Developer-Speaks-Out-On-Game-Piracy
Re: Re: Re:3 At some point it's not fair use
“Do you regularly click through after reading the entire story? Be honest. Or are you just like everyone else looking for a way to rationalize their piracy? “
Well, I wasnt speaking to the “piracy” part of the argument, just the fallacy that a reposted article with a link could almost NEVER lead to someone clicking through to the originating site.
To answer that question, do I regularly click through, yes I do, if the linked article is interesting, quite often. There are probably other interesting things in that case, as I am only seeing this 1 reposted-and-linked article. Thats how, you know, we DISCOVER interesting things on the web, since thats a big part of how its designed.
Re: Re: Re:3 At some point it's not fair use
STRAW MAN ALERT
I guess this is another way from getting out from under when you don’t have an argument.
BTW, speaking for myself, yes I do regularly click through in those circumstances.
And did you read the story Mike linked to?
Ms Wong republished the story out of concern for the animals who were the centre of the story not to make a profit (her blog didn’t show ads) but out of concern.
Part of deciding any case, this one included includes motivation and this is certainly innocent enough if not, admittedly, the correct decision on her part. An email or letter pointing out her mistake or a conversation with her by Righthaven would have cleared this up without the lawsuit. Just as importantly Righthaven’s motivation in filing suit without following normal procedures is or will be part of the decision.
In my country Ms Wong would be found to infringe, undoubtedly, but the award to Righthaven would have been on the order of $1 and Righthaven would be on the hook for Ms Wong’s costs. Keeps frivolous and trolling lawsuits down to a minimum it does. Stirkes me this is both.
Re: Re: Re: At some point it's not fair use
Oh beacon of knowledge can you point us to a copy of the original post showing that she copy verbatim the entire article? or could you point us to the court filings showing that?
Otherwise you are jumping the gun and is in no way thinking straight.
For all we know the lady posted a brief quote from that and added some thoughts and that is “fair use”, which she is not fighting because she may be afraid.
Re: Re: Re: At some point it's not fair use
“Uh, genius when you reproduce the entire article or a large portion of it, there’s no reason for people to click through. What makes you think that people actually click through. How many people read the original article? It’s clear from reading many comments here and in other places like Slashdot that it’s a small percentage. So what makes you think that providing a link next to the entire text will actually generate sales or clicks or whatever?”
Stupidest fucking post I’ve EVER seen on the internet, and I’ve seen some seriously dumb shit in my time.
Do you even have ANY conception of how the web WORKS? Any at all?
The ENTIRE purpose of the web is to provide links to things OF INTEREST. Those things have links to other things, and people VERY FREQUENTLY FOLLOW LINKS FROM SITE TO SITE (please get this part through your thick-as-a-paywall skull.) This has been true since the inception of the damn web. If people read the article on this blog, for example, and it INTERESTS THEM, they will very likely click the link associated with the article TO FIND MORE INTERESTING STUFF FROM THE SAME AUTHOR (or site or whatever is behind the link).
Again, this is WEB 101, where the fuck have you been hiding for the past 2 decades? Put down the shill pipe long enough to grasp basic concepts before you spin off into wild paranoid fantasies of “theft” and “OMG! no one will ever go there!”
I have found many many interesting sites from reading an article or blog./commentary on another site and followed the link to the parent site (Arstechnica, for instance, from here) because I found the intial “copy” interesting. I didnt go (as you suggest nearly all people would do) “good article, but I cant be assed to click the link to see if maybe, possibly, they might have SIMILAR INTERESTING SHIT TO READ.” No, I clicked the link to see WHAT ELSE THEY MIGHT HAVE. And trust me, you yourself have done this as well. We ALL have, every one of us who has ever spent any time on the web. Its one of the major ways of HOW THE WEB WORKS.
It’s amazing to me that someone who KNOWS good and god damn well this is how things work can make such a bald, specious and garbage statement like the one you did that is such a falsehood on its face. You arent going to fool anyone. People arent that stupid, stupid.
Re: Re: Re:2 At some point it's not fair use
Ok. Slow down and take a deep breath. Inhale….Exhale….Inhale….Exhale. Here’s a paper bag. Breathe into it, put it over your head, whatever. I can get you a plastic bag, if you’d like.
Now for a lesson on Web 101: the basic, most elementary, and most important purpose of the World Wide Web is the dissemination of funny cat pictures. That’s it. The combined collective worldwide bandwidth usage by news, games, and even porn is dwarfed by it.
See? You learn something new every day. Always remember, the moar you know…
Re: Re: Re:3 At some point it's not fair use
I can’t believe I forgot to sign in…
Re: At some point it's not fair use
A LoLCat site from Boston with probably 10 thousand readers of which maybe %1 click on ad’s is draining what exactly?
Besides I see no warnings, no attempts to contact that person, no nothing bad faith?
She may have infringed, but her actions are not from someone that is immoral or amoral, apparently upon acknowledgment of the proceedings she took steps and did go to great length to repair the situation can that be said about the opposing side?
More where did you read that she took everything? Can you please point to the public court proceedings that you read, because sure as hell it wasn’t on the article linked above in the article so I’m a bit confused as to where that information originated.
Re: At some point it's not fair use
An absurd statement: “It pretty much drains the revenue stream of the content creator.” Why should content creators be exempt from the free-market? How many people who assert that content creators are somehow entitled to a revenue stream would stand-up for people who own businesses or are employees who are put out-of-business because of technological/productivity advances?
If you can’t control your revenue stream – don’t create the content. Content creators have no right to deprive people of other peoples rights through onerous laws as a means of enriching themselves.
Re: Come on
Bob,
Mike posts commentary on the side of content creators nearly every single day.
He also posts commentary pointing out the self-defeating idiocy of some folks, some of whom are content creators, some of whom are middlemen, some of whom are lawyers who produce nothing but court-clogging zero-sum demands for other people’s money.
Others have pointed out examples of infringement worth suing over. Now, a question for you, Bob: Please describe the extent of the economic damage done by a non-commercial blogger posting as a cat when they post, with attribution and link, an article about birds. Put a dollar-amount on what you think the actual damage is (not the statutorily created amounts) .
I dare you.
Re: Re: Come on
Mike posts commentary on the side of content creators nearly every single day.
That’s a good one. Once a day he’ll proclaim some abstract belief in the right of content creators to make a living and then he’ll find a reason to hate almost every single plan to help them collect money. Unless it’s unworkable and sponsored by the EFF.
Re: Re: Re: Come on
That’s a good one. Once a day he’ll proclaim some abstract belief in the right of content creators to make a living and then he’ll find a reason to hate almost every single plan to help them collect money.
Wait, why focus on “collecting” money. That’s your problem. I think business models should be based on fundamental capitalism, whereby someone sells something scarce & valuable and someone else buys it. No “collecting” necessary.
Unless it’s unworkable and sponsored by the EFF.
Funny, ’cause one of the few things I really think the EFF gets wrong is its idea for blanket licenses.
Re: Re: Re: Come on
You see, Mike wants to work with content creators on both sides, and he type is getting smaller numbers, most people are just fed up with you people.
Re: At some point it's not fair use
Just once I would like you to take the side of the content creators.
Hmm. I always take the side of content creators. I spend a lot of time showing how they can make more money with smarter business models and how suing their fans is not a good long term strategy.
I never knew that trying to help content creators was going against them. How odd.
Posting the entire article with a link is doing much more than “alerting”. It pretty much drains the revenue stream of the content creator.
Really? Do tell. How is this cat blogger “draining the revenue” from the LVRJ? Honestly. I’m trying to figure it out. The blogger got a few visits a day, and the likelihood that any of them would have read this particular LVRJ article otherwise seems minimal. The likelihood that some might see this, click through to see more is somewhat higher.
So I dare you. Point out some kind of infringement that you think is worth suing over.
I’ve yet to see a copyright or patent situation that I believe is worth suing over, frankly. I find that there are always better solutions.
Trademark is different, as I do believe that a “likelihood of confusion” is a reasonable thing to prevent, but that’s because trademark is about consumer protection against fraud.
You’re so biased against content producers
Again, I don’t see how suggesting better business models and showing them how to make more money and not piss off fans could possible be seen as being against content producers. I’m really sort of confused by your response, frankly.
Re: At some point it's not fair use
Problem is that this outfit sues over a teaser, as it’s called in the trade, with a link to the entire story. Teaser being the first paragraph or two to gain interest and then the Read More link.
You’re not taking a darned thing away from the “creator” or their ad revenue, if anything you’re contributing to it to it doing that.
Strikes me that that’s a hell of a way to lose revenue for a “creator” though I have some issues with calling a news organization a creator and yes, I’ve worked in that industry. Writing to an inverted pyramid style isn’t all that creative, you know.
“Apparently none of those papers want you alerting anyone to the news they publish.
Just once I would like you to take the side of the content creators. Posting the entire article with a link is doing much more than “alerting”. It pretty much drains the revenue stream of the content creator.
So I dare you. Point out some kind of infringement that you think is worth suing over. I bet you can’t do it. You’re so biased against content producers that you would call raping a young writer a free gyn exam.”
http://techdirt.com/articles/20100827/01493710790.shtml
No need to read above comment.
Those newspapers are just embarrassed about
1. All the birth announcements where the parents are brother and sister.
2. All the wedding announcements where the bride and groom are first cousins.
fair use
The main point is probably the disproportionate claims of damages, especially given that in this case there really are no damages at all – if anything the attribution and link to the original benefited the original content creator.
Though the copyright holder is in my opinion entitled to ask the blogger to remove the content, the claims of damages are just laughable and should be thrown out.
In any case I agree that one should simply not link to or quote articles from such publishers – it’s too risky you might get sued.
Clueless
And these newspaper fogies wonder why the printed newspaper industry is in the toilet?
Question...
This might simply be a function of my living in the States, but does this idea ownership idea persist in other cultures as well? I know that individualism and idea ownership (philosphies for which I believe a lot of this copyright nonsense is to blame) are big factors in Western culture.
So…are there any studies on how these ideas/philosophies are holding in other cultures? I know Native American culture abhorred (sp?) the idea of ownership, as most everything belonged to nature, including physical property. It’d be interesting to note how idea protectionism is viewed in other world cultures. Maybe we Westerners are just defective?
Re: Question...
White people are defective in general. I don’t trust any of them.
Re: Question...
It’s gaining hold in Canada. That may be because we’ve caught an infection or other drifting across the 49th parallel. 😉
Would this suit be successful up here? In a way it would be though Righthaven would be slapped down hard. (See my post with the straw man alert in it.)
The lunacy here isn’t as much about creators, as we both know, but about how much the parasitical middlemen can suck out of the creator before, maybe, paying them something.
One thing I do know is that Bob isn’t the least bit creative. I’m sure he has a list of stock phrases that he strings together which create posts of varying readability and sense. No human could actually write that poorly after Grade 4!
So since you have an arsenal of material, EFF backing, and a very nice platform for some civil disobedience. How about a day or week devoted to nothing but content from customers of Righthaven?
Tomorrow morning at 8AM around the the world I want everyone who reads this post to highlight and copy a major newspapers news report (anything will do) and post it on this site as a comment. That’s organized innocent infringement and TechDirt won’t be responsible, because it was suggested by a reader.
Lets see the assholes police that. Think they can get a class action suit going?
Robbed
I would say RightHaven owes Cat Blogger money for linking back to them! Many search engines count the number of links linking TO your site as an indication of how “important” you are on the web. The judge is right in his effort to make this case “go away.”
One Link Up, Many to go
@AC,
I am starting now.
“Bowie County hay producers have until Sept. 17 to submit entries for the Bowie County Hay Exposition Oct. 7 at James Bowie School in Simms, Texas.”
http://www.texarkanagazette.com/news/localnews/2010/08/30/entry-deadline-looming-for-local-hay-exp-30.php
RFC Case Number: C-R10-856E
Court Case Number: 2:10-cv-00856-LRH-RJJ
File Date: Friday, June 04, 2010
Plaintiff: Righthaven LLC
Plaintiff Counsel: John Charles Coons, Joseph C. Chu, Steven A. Gibson of Righthaven LLC
Defendant: Emerson Wong
Allegra Wong
Cause: 17:501 Copyright Infringement
Court: Nevada District Court
Judge: Judge Larry R. Hicks
http://www.scribd.com/doc/35305972/Defendant-Wong-s-Answer-to-Complaint-Filed-July-15-2010
Referred To: Magistrate Judge Robert J. Johnston
Boycott Review-Journal!
That journal may suffer in the future, it may be difficult to find sources if they continue to sue everyone.
“• Critics say R-J reporters are now in a conflict of interest situation because their paper in many cases is suing their sources including the state Democratic Party, Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, real estate brokerages and agents and Anthony Curtis, a gaming industry observer and publisher.”
http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010/aug/04/some-targets-righthaven-lawsuits-fighting-back/
“Finally one of the 100-plus defendants in the RJ Copyright Troll cases has called the paper’s tactics what they really are — Entrapment.”
http://www.lvjournalreview.com/ (The anti-journal-review website)
Righthaven
Here is the Arkansas Democrat Gazette article on Righthaven – its so terribly one sided. Reads like a press release – no reporting here. And of course, its behind a paywall. ADG has lost their mind.
http://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2010/aug/26/firm-holds-websites-law-20100826/
Websites to blacklist.
http://www.stephensmedia.com/gamingwire/
http://www.examiner-enterprise.com
http://www.boonevilledemocrat.com
http://www.charlestonexpress.com
http://www.courier-tribune.com
http://www.columbiadailyherald.com
http://www.thedailyworld.com
http://www.eltiempolibre.com
http://www.elynews.com
http://www.greenwooddemocrat.com
http://www.hilohawaiitribune.com
http://www.herald-democrat.com
http://www.lasvegascitylife.com
http://www.reviewjournal.com
http://www.arkansasnews.com
http://www.thevidette.com
http://www.nwaonline.net
http://www.paris-express.com
http://www.pbcommercial.com
http://www.pressargus.com
http://www.southernnevadahomeandgarden.com/
http://www.snhomes.com
http://www.swtimes.com
http://www.vanburencountydem.com
http://www.viewnews.com
http://www.stephensdc.com
http://www.westhawaiitoday.com
http://www.1st100.com/
http://www.FOIArkansas.com
http://www.LasVegasNewsPapers.com
http://www.NWAOnline.net
http://www.FortSmith.com
http://www.PineBluff.com
http://www.Van-Buren.com
http://www.CasinoGaming.com
http://www.LasVegas.com
http://www.LA.com
http://www.Hawaii.com
http://www.lvrj.com/communitylink/
http://donrey.koz.com/servlet/community_ProcServ/DBPAGE=cge&GID=01003011620948298958442745
http://www.texomalink.com/
http://www.reviewjournal.com/about/print/rjstaff.html
Okay, Bob (or is it TAM?), you say a mere link and quote deprives somebody of income, prove it. I want a complete chain of causality from start to finish with reference articles and full supporting evidence that is empirically documented and third party (not connected to MAFIAA organizations). Otherwise you’re just blowing around a lot of hot air and trolling.
Re: Re:
It wasn’t a mere link. This woman was too lazy to fill out her blog and so she just cut and pasted someone else’s work.
Re: Re: Re:
Show the link to a cached page or the court docked stating that fact with proof, because all read it all and didn’t see nobody saying what amount she used. So please show us the facts that back up that statement or risk being called a liar.
They don't like traffic fine boycott all that crap now!
Websites people can add to a filter blacklist for now on.
http://www.stephensmedia.com/gamingwire/
http://www.examiner-enterprise.com
http://www.boonevilledemocrat.com
http://www.charlestonexpress.com
http://www.courier-tribune.com
http://www.columbiadailyherald.com
http://www.thedailyworld.com
http://www.eltiempolibre.com
http://www.elynews.com
http://www.greenwooddemocrat.com
http://www.hilohawaiitribune.com
http://www.herald-democrat.com
http://www.lasvegascitylife.com
http://www.reviewjournal.com
http://www.arkansasnews.com
http://www.thevidette.com
http://www.nwaonline.net
http://www.paris-express.com
http://www.pbcommercial.com
http://www.pressargus.com
http://www.southernnevadahomeandgarden.com/
http://www.snhomes.com
http://www.swtimes.com
http://www.vanburencountydem.com
http://www.viewnews.com
http://www.stephensdc.com
http://www.westhawaiitoday.com
http://www.1st100.com/
http://www.FOIArkansas.com
http://www.LasVegasNewsPapers.com
http://www.NWAOnline.net
http://www.FortSmith.com
http://www.PineBluff.com
http://www.Van-Buren.com
http://www.CasinoGaming.com
http://www.LasVegas.com
http://www.LA.com
http://www.Hawaii.com
http://www.lvrj.com/communitylink/
http://donrey.koz.com/servlet/community_ProcServ/DBPAGE=cge&GID=01003011620948298958442745
http://www.texomalink.com/
http://www.reviewjournal.com/about/print/rjstaff.html
http://www.boonevilledemocrat.com/
http://www.cabotstarherald.com/
http://www.carlisleindependent.com/
http://www.charlestonexpress.com/
http://www.freeweekly.com/
http://www.greenwooddemocrat.com/
http://www.hsvvoice.com/
http://www.jacksonvillepatriot.com/
http://www.lonokedemocrat.com/
http://www.nwaonline.net/
http://www.paris-express.com/
http://www.pbcommercial.com/
http://www.pinebluff.com/
http://www.pressargus.com/
http://www.sherwoodvoice.com/
http://www.swtimes.com/
http://www.fortsmith.com/
http://www.van-buren.com/
http://www.maumellemonitor.com/
http://www.nlrtimes.com/
http://www.vanburencountydem.com/
http://www.808classifieds.com/
http://www.bigislandweekly.com/
http://www.hilohawaiitribune.com/
http://www.westhawaiitoday.com/
http://mcdonaldcountypress.com/
http://www.elynews.com/
http://www.reviewjournal.com/
http://www.lvrj.com/
http://www.pahrumpvalleytimes.com/
http://www.courier-tribune.com/
http://www.examiner-enterprise.com/
http://www.columbiadailyherald.com/
http://www.amtrib.com/
http://www.herald-democrat.com/
http://www.prosperpressnews.com/
http://www.vanalstyneleader.net/
http://www.thedailyworld.com/
http://www.thevidette.com/
http://www.arkansasnews.com/
http://www.stephensdc.com/
http://www.stephenspress.com/
Newspapers to boycott.
Arkansas
* Booneville Democrat – Booneville, AR
* Cabot Star-Herald – Cabot, AR
o Cabot Weekly
* Carlisle Independent – Carlisle, AR
* Charleston Express – Charleston, AR
* Fayetteville Free Weekly – Fayetteville, AR
* Greenwood Democrat – Greenwood, AR
* Hot Springs Village Voice – Hot Springs Village, AR
* Jacksonville Patriot – Jacksonville, AR
* Lonoke Democrat – Lonoke, AR
* Morning News of Northwest Arkansas – Springdale, AR
* Paris Express – Paris, AR
* Pine Bluff Commercial – Pine Bluff, AR
o The Market Place
o The White Hall Progress
* Press Argus Courier – Van Buren, AR
o Alma Journal
* Sherwood Voice – Sherwood, AR
* Southwest Times Record – Fort Smith, AR
* The Maumelle Monitor – Maumelle, AR
* The Times – North Little Rock, AR
* Van Buren County Democrat – Clinton AR
* Washington County Newspapers
o The Lincoln Leader
o The Prairie Grove Enterprise
o The Farmington Post
Hawaii
* 808 Classifieds – Hilo, HI
* Big Island Weekly – Hilo, HI
* Hawaii Tribune-Herald – Hilo, HI
* North Hawaii News – Waimea, HI
* West Hawaii Today – Kailua-Kona, HI
o North Hawaii News
o Big Island, HI
o Westside Weekly
Missouri
* McDonald County Newspapers
o The Anderson Graphic The Goodman News-Dispatch
o The McDonald County News-Gazette
o The McDonald County Press
o The Southwest City Republic
o El Tiempo
Nevada
* Ely Times – Ely, NV
* Eureka Sentinel – Eureka, NV
* Las Vegas Review-Journal – Las Vegas, NV
o View Neighborhood Newspapers
o El Tiempo
o Las Vegas CityLife
o Las Vegas Business Press
o Rebel Nation
o New Homes Guide
o Luxury Las Vegas
o Southern Nevada Home And Garden Magazine
o Nifty Nickel
o Neighborhood Shopper
o Jobs Today Weekly
* Pahrump Valley Times – Pahrump, NV
* Tonopah Times-Bonanza – Tonopah, NV
North Carolina
* Courier-Tribune – Asheboro, NC
Oklahoma
* Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise – Bartlesville, OK
* Pawhuska Journal-Capital – Pawhuska, OK
Tennessee
* The Daily Herald – Columbia, TN
o The Advertiser News Of Spring Hill And Thompson’s Station
o Franklin Life
o Brentwood Life
Texas
* Anna-Melissa Tribune – Anna, TX
* Herald Democrat – Sherman, TX
o Grayson County Shopper
* Lake Texoma Life – Van Alstyne, TX
* Prosper Press – Prosper, TX
* Van Alstyne Leader – Van Alstyne, TX
Washington
* The Daily World – Aberdeen, WA
o The North Coast News
o The South Beach Bulletin
o East County News
* The Montesano Vidette – Montesano, WA
I have no problems at all boycotting this silly proxy company and all that it holds.
What people should do.
We are everywhere, we can do it ourselves, just ask anybody in a city if they have news and they will give it all.
People should organize and make free news that compete with the legacy news, then I want to see how funny it gets when they have no revenue stream.
Re: What people should do.
Oh, ye of little faith. They don’t need a revenue stream because they are good. The other people– the ones that want to make enough money to pay for their house and maybe get some heath care– they’re bad. And good people can do anything because of the power of goodness.
Re: Re: What people should do.
Who cares about those bastards? Really the petty card?
Annoy people and you will have to deal with the backlash, period.
Besides people can do the same reporting and bring video and photos live from the scene almost instantly, can news outlets do that?
Now that would be competition, and if people started asserting “rights” over it legacy players would suffer.
http://ninapaley.com/mimiandeunice/archives/something-for-nothing/646
You think Mike and Nina have some deal?
I saw this before this post and it so makes sense.
Re: Re:
I read her cartoon and while it doesn’t directly relate to this discussion I agree with her sentiment.
Therefore, you owe me $20 for reading your inane drivel.
(I don’t know of any formal link between Nina and Techdirt though she’s a frequent poster here. Maybe you could ask her.)
really this isn’t that big of a shock. WEHCO Media is stephens media LLC partners. if you look at WEHCO’s history page at the bottom they talk about the partnership to create a third company.
them using righthaven probably came through as part of that partnership.
Still waiting for that chain of causality, Bob/TAM, and all the evidence surrounding it. Or are you passing on it because you know you don’t have a case? Either provide what I’ve asked for or take your trolling elsewhere. Now.
Re:
There’s a reason that every successful website on the internet encourages, if not begs bloggers to post their content with a link back, and it’s not because they think that the 1-200 people who might view the article on some blog are actually going to click through to their website.
It’s because search engines like google and bing have bots scouring the internet all day, and those bots WILL click through, and with each relevant link to your page, those bots will improve your page’s ranking in their search engine results.
It’s called search engine optimization, and anyone who runs a mildly successful blog gets emails from people trying to game the search engines, offering $1-200 for a paid link. This is why google promoted the use of “rel=nofollow” in links (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nofollow#Paid_links) and actually threatens to lower your pagerank if you are found to be selling links without using it.
So, they are in fact suing people who were actually helping them and doing them a service. If they lost any revenue at all, there is NO CHANCE that it could exceed $5.00 on any of these sites, which is well below the monetary value of the link back they received
New Perspective
My bookkeeper called me frantically because she’d done a search on TZ Holdings LLC (my company, which owns Silicon Investor, which I’m sure is the target) and saw that Rockhaven had filed suit against us and another party.
I believe I saw them and possibly commented on them when I saw this rolled out as a new business model, and those comments would not have been very positive at all, but they also wouldn’t have been copyright infringement.
I’m looking but have yet to find where I’ve been informed of a possible violation via the simple reporting method included on the site.
I do see that my traffic yesterday was 50% higher than a week ago and income from just one ad network about 110% higher. And it looks like today’s numbers will have similar gains.
We’re pretty aggressive, when informed by copyright holders, about stamping it out on the site and always advise members to only post a relevant excerpt and always with a link to the full content so that the owner can get the free advertising benefit.
I get far too many new posts daily to ever even contemplate reading all of it to see if anyone’s breaking our rules. We rely on tattling.
Robert (Bob) Zumbrunnen
Managing Partner, TZ Holdings LLC
Owner, SiliconInvestor.Com
link
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