Newspapers' New Revenue Plan — Copyright Suits

SpicyBrownMustard writes "Wired magazine has coverage of the numerous lawsuits recently filed by Righthaven, LLC regarding the content of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. 'Borrowing a page from patent trolls, the CEO of fledgling Las Vegas-based Righthaven has begun buying out the copyrights to newspaper content for the sole purpose of suing blogs and websites that re-post those articles without permission. And he says he's making money.' The owner of the LVRJ has commented on the strategy, and the Las Vegas Sun has extensive coverage of each suit filed. The owner of one site has apparently settled for more than the site has made in six years. Media Matters suspects many of the suits may be politically motivated, and thus violate federal election law."

Comments

The guy isn't exactly innocent either

[SquarePixel]

The owned of acdc-bootlegs.com site mentioned in the summary isn't exactly innocent either.

To begin with, the site is devoted to offer downloads of bootlegs, which according to current copyright laws is illegal. Even if you don't think it's a big deal, you have to go by laws.

What the current lawsuit is about is the use of copyrighted content from news sites (and not in fair use manner), again a copyright infringement.

Then he is also doing click fraud:

One thing you can do is click on the Google ads on the left side of all of the pages on this site. I make a few cents from each click, which will go directly to paying the settlement. So the more you click, the more you help. And it's free to you! You do not need to fill out any forms or submit your personal information; just click on the link, let the page load and go from there.

The way the /. story title and summary is worded makes it sound bad, but this guy is also blatantly breaking several laws and frauding advertisers to generate money. He just got what he asked for. He should be happy AC/DC or Google hasn't sued him.

Re:The guy isn't exactly innocent either

[eldavojohn]

The owned of acdc-bootlegs.com site mentioned in the summary isn't exactly innocent either.

To begin with, the site is devoted to offer downloads of bootlegs, which according to current copyright laws is illegal. Even if you don't think it's a big deal, you have to go by laws.

So when those copyright holders come knocking, he should be prosecuted for that. Why are you trying to smear together two separate cases of alleged copyright infringement? Is it easier to wave your hands and say "it'll never happen to Slashdot?" If you're trying to put me at ease that this won't happen to me because I don't also commit other crimes, it's not working. I submit many articles to Slashdot and I quote many articles in my comments here as I dissect news. Will they sue me for my karma?

The way the /. story title and summary is worded makes it sound bad, but this guy is also blatantly breaking several laws and frauding advertisers to generate money. He just got what he asked for. He should be happy AC/DC or Google hasn't sued him.

Then let him be charged for click fraud (is that even illegal?) and bootlegging movies. If he's being charged for reposting news articles, we should probably talk about that and the sort of growing mentality that may come with it if it turns out to be profitable to sue under. I don't care about his speeding tickets or other things he may be guilty of. Your ad hominem attack may help in a court of law as character assassination but given the number of these suits, it's not putting me at ease.

Re:The guy isn't exactly innocent either

[SquarePixel]

Slashdot just summarizes the stories and provides links to the source articles. That is fair use. The guy was just copying the whole articles.

Re:The guy isn't exactly innocent either

[hairyfeet]

But Fair Use is an affirmative defense (I believe it is the correct term) which means you still have to get to the point that you are standing in front of a judge so you can say "I believe this is Fair Use because" (a judge ultimately decides if it is or isn't) and due to the frankly insane cost of lawyers fees the odds are you'll go bankrupt before they will, which makes this a great weapon against speech.

I think we should be calling lawsuits over imaginary property what they are: Legalized extortion. Because most folks simply cannot afford to defend themselves against the bullies, who go "Hey, it'd be a shame if you lost everything you own due to bankruptcy. Give me $5k and I won't fuck you over". It doesn't matter whether one is guilty or innocent anymore, it is whether you can afford to fight back or not , and most of us simply can't. Just one more way democracy has been destroyed by those with money.

Dumb

[Bryansix]

Anybody with half a brain realizes that facts are free but content is not. I'm actually happy that these websites that simply repost content so they can steal the ad revenue are being sued. How lazy do you have to be to not just write your own content on the same exact subject and do some semblance of research on the topic?

Re:Dumb

[CheshireCatCO]

Well, for one thing: in a lot of the cases, it sounds like the site owners aren't posting the content, it's user-uploaded. That calls for a take-down notice, not a lawsuit. So they're more likely trolling for lawsuit money and not interested in protecting IP.

Also, it isn't clear to me how much of each story is being reposted. Is it the whole thing without commentary? Snippets within a much larger post? Somewhere in between?

Not entirely evil

[Enderandrew]

I know this seems evil, but in the end, journalism is important. And if newspapers are going to survive moving into the future, they need to start selling content and protecting content.

I think people should be able to quote 2-3 sentences, summarize your story and link to it. But fully copying content isn't cool. And while I assume I'll get some responses who suggest IP is imaginary and that all information should be free, this is reality. It costs money to produce content. You can give away your content for free if you wish, but content creators deserve the right to make money on their content if they so choose.

Re:Not entirely evil

[bws111]

The 'information' is free and can not be copyrighted. The information in this case would be the fact that there was an accident, number of cars, etc. However, if you write a creative description of that information, it can be copyrighted.

You could not copyright the following description: There was an auto accident at the corner of A and B streets today. One of the cars was speeding and ran a red light. Minor injuries were reported.

However, the following may be able to be copyrighted: A spectacular auto accident occurred at the corner of A and B streets today. One vehicle was careening down the street and inadvisedly ran the red light. The other vehicle had already entered the intersection, and they collided in a cacophony of breaking glass and crumpling steel. Fortunately for all involved, only minor injuries were reported.

Anyone could strip out all of your 'creative' content and still reprint the facts, adding their own creative content if they wish. But that is not what is occurring. Instead, people are just copying YOUR sentences.

The last sentence is misleading

[Attila Dimedici]

What Media Matters really means is that who they choose not to sue may be politically motivated. The claim is that because they allow people they agree with to use their copyrighted material, they should be required to allow people they oppose to use their copyrighted material. What is the point of copyright if I don't get to pick and choose who gets to copy my material on whatever basis I wish?

Re:The last sentence is misleading

[Artifakt]

As copyright law was originally written, you sued only over financial damages. For roughly 200 years, you had no basis to pick and choose except financial harm. The law still doesn't give you that right in the US - if it did, it would include what are called 'moral copyright clauses', as, for example, the ones now used in French law which the US has deliberately avoided including in treaty. Now that parts of copyright law have been criminalised, you are in effect arguing that your right allows you to compel the state to engage in selective prosecution of crimes, as is expressly forbidden in the bill of rights, for damned good reasons.

Drive it away?

[bhagwad]

From TFA. He starts with a car analogy (so far so good)

But then, you entered my front yard, climbed into the front seat and drove it away. ....Yet, when it comes to copyrighted material some people think they can not only look at it, but also steal it. And they do. They essentially step into the front yard and drive that content away.

What am I reading here? How can you "drive away" content? After "driving away" with your car, is your car still in place? Unharmed? Ready for you to use? Or sell if you want? Not making a point here. I'm just saying that comparing copyright infringement to driving away a car is beyond silly.

Just like the Getty trolls

[Overzeetop]

Getty, I'm convinced, makes a good living off of crawling the web looking for their images. They put a bunch of them on stock photo CDs years ago, and the licensing on the box covers implies that they are free to use when you buy the cd (royalty free, I believe, its the term). It turns out, though, that by royalty free, they mean you don't have to pay per impression, but you still have to buy a license for each image separately, per year. I got hit for two thumbnails a couple years ago, and had to cough up $2000 for the transgression.

Thing is, for $2k, you can't fight it. And even if you've got a 90% chance of winning (which I didn't, though the oversight was unintentional - or rather, I thought I actually did own a license), it's not worth $20,000-$100,000 legal bill to try and prove you're right.

It extortion, but legal.

Oh, and I'll never, ever license a Getty work, and I actively discourage it with everyone I know.

Re:Not a troll

[Overzeetop]

They sound like trolls. It appears as if they don't actually produce any of the content. They buy an exclusive license to redistribute on speculation that someone will intentionally or inadvertently infringe, then they sue for enough money to make them money, but not enough to make it worth fighting in court.

Re:Is that click fraud?

[SquarePixel]

From Google AdSense policies

Encouraging Clicks

Publishers may not ask others to click their ads or use deceptive implementation methods to obtain clicks. This includes, but is not limited to, offering compensation to users for viewing ads or performing searches, promising to raise money for third parties for such behavior or placing images next to individual ads.

Yes, it can be counted as fraud, especially when there's money involved. It's only a matter of at what point (how much money is involved) it makes sense for Google and other ad networks to go after the people frauding them. If someone happens to report him to Google, he will get his account disabled and the income lost. If it was a lot of money, he might even get sued by Google.

Also, since he is now using ads he is also commercially benefiting from copyrighted material (bootlegs) he has no right to. That gives even more serious jail time than the casual piracy happening over p2p networks.