Senate Candidate Sued By Copyright Troll

The Iso writes "Las Vegas based company Righthaven found two articles from the Las Vegas Review-Journal about Republican Senate candidate Sharron Angle reprinted on her web site without permission, so it did what it always does: bought the rights to the articles from the Review-Journal and sued the alleged infringer, seeking unspecified damages."

Comments

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[broKenfoLd]

Now we just need a Paul Allen to step up and sue a senator for patent infringement, and maybe we'll get an ear in the Senate to put a stop to this craziness.

Re:Next

[Jawnn]

Copyright craziness vs. having Angle in the Senate. Tough call...

Re:Next

[unitron]

Are you comparing them on the basis of dangerousness or entertainment value?

The more the better

[PerformanceDude]

Hopefully Righthaven finds more politicians to sue. Lots more. Then maybe - just maybe - will we get some consumer friendly copyright laws. In this case it would appear that Sharron Angle is indeed guilty of willful infringement, but if more politicians get hurt in their own pocket by copyright suits then the chance of them creating laws that states that damages must fit the crime may actually come into effect. That would kill the business model behind the *IAA cartel suits.

Re:The more the better

[Anonymous Coward]

Hopefully Righthaven finds more politicians to sue. Lots more. Then maybe - just maybe - will we get some consumer friendly copyright laws.

pft! Those case will just have "undisclosed settlements" -- and Righthaven will have more politician owing them when it comes time to vote on legislation.

Re:The more the better

[Haedrian]

Kind of "Biting the hand that feeds you" isn't it?

I wonder what their plan is - they're irritating a politician, who actually has enough contacts and power to damage the whole enterprise of suing people for large sums of money.

Re:The more the better

[khchung]

Hopefully Righthaven finds more politicians to sue. Lots more. Then maybe - just maybe - will we get some consumer friendly copyright laws.

No, you will get safehaven laws to shield politicians from these suits instead. Just like the Do-not-call-list specifically contained exemptions to let politicians call you.

Re:The more the better

[scottgfx]

You may want to read this.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/02/AR2010070203977.html

Harry has already done enough to ruin the country.

Re:The more the better

[flowwolf]

Is it really infringement if you're republishing an article about yourself? Are the laws clear on this issue? I only ask because I find that to be very odd.

Re:The more the better

[Neil_Brown]

Is it really infringement if you're republishing an article about yourself? Are the laws clear on this issue? I only ask because I find that to be very odd.

Most lawyers will probably tell you that "clear" means that you have roughly a 51% chance of success, as opposed to a 99-100% chance of success, really.

Copyright protects the expression, not the subject matter, of a work. As such, the mere fact that an article is about you does not give you ownership of the article under copyright law - similarly, if I photograph you walking down the street, the photograph is mine, not yours. (Absent an agreement or relationship to the contrary.)

If you do not own the copyright in the article, and want to perform an act restricted by copyright, then, you'd either need a licence to use it, or else have a particular fair use defence (US) or fair dealing exception (European).

If you host a copy of the article yourself, you've performed an act restricted by copyright by virtue of uploading it to your webserver, and likely other acts too.

Is it "fair use" to host / redistribute an article about yourself? I'm not a US lawyer, so couldn't express any form of valid opinion on this, but, my understanding is, since fair use is a defence, you'd need to cough up for litigation first. In Europe, it would depend on which state you were in - under English law, the "fair dealing" sections would not permit this, absent, perhaps, a very short period of time after initial publication of the article, for "news reporting" - but that's tenuous at best, t omy mind.

(Just my thoughts, not legal advice, no warranties, don't run as root etc.)

Re:The more the better

[TheRaven64]

A better example is the recent case against RIM. When the court was about to issue an injunction that would cause Blackberry service to be blocked in the USA, you might have thought that this would make Congress consider reviewing whether the current patent system was really in the public interest. Instead, they indicated that, if this were to be the case, then they'd make an exemption to the injunction for politicians in the name of national security.

Re:The more the better

[Anonymous Coward]

pardon, maybe i misread it - but the articles she reprinted were reviews about herself. so the subject of the articles is in her copyright, how can she infringe willfully something that should belonged to her from the beginning?

actually she should sue the outlets for breaking her rights! At worst this belongs into the fair use category!

Re:The more the better

[Xtifr]

Basically correct as I understand it, but if you're a private citizen, then I believe you retain some rights over images and descriptions of yourself. The creator of those images or descriptions would still be the primary copyright holder, but I don't think they can publish without your permission.

If you become a public figure (like a Senatorial candidate, for example), then it's a whole different story, and you're more or less fair game. This is why regular photographers get people to sign releases, but paparazzi don't.

Re:The more the better

[PyroMosh]

I get it that lots of people don't like Harry Reid. That's fine. But angle is amazingly, dangerously, stupidly incompetent, and perhaps crazy.

She made a lot of noise about "second amendment remedies" if she doesn't get elected, and now has to back track that and either avoid questions, or blatantly state that she's not really advocating armed revolution. Always a good sign.
http://www.lvrj.com/blogs/politics/Another_Angle_issue_emerges.html?ref=279

This one is golden. The idea that she should be "friends" with the media and they should report what *she* wants? HILARIOUS!
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20012559-503544.html

Or just take your pick. She wants most of the federal government abolished, and is more or less anti-science:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharron_Angle

Re:The more the better

[salesgeek]

Not likely. If Angle wins, and that is highly likely, Righthaven can look forward to subtle changes in the law. Politicians do not see being trolled as a "favor" and tend to be very good at using power to punish their enemies.

Re:The more the better

[Anonymous Coward]

Anti science??? The wiki article says she is pro science :) (As much as a theologist is pro god).

Re:The more the better

[Builder]

That might be right in the US, but in the UK you retain no rights whatsoever. If I can photograph you from a public place, I can do almost anything I like with that image, including publishing it for money.

Re:The more the better

[Skip1952]

Yes, the changes will probably benefit the politicians though not anyone else. Sort of like how politicians aren't affected by the do not call list.

Re:The more the better

[TogusaS9]

All of which supports my nickname for her: Sharron "Obtuse" Angle. :) She's obtuse about the Constitution, obtuse about science, and obtuse about reality.

Re:The more the better

[Igarden2]

The characterization presented by PyroMosh of the three stories is really a masterpiece of spin. Not only did she NOT advocate any armed revolution, she said so. Her statement is totally taken out of context. As to 'friends' with the media, she doesn't normally talk to media that is likely to do a hatchet job on her words. And yes, she does advocate smaller federal government, but to say she wants to abolish 'most' of it is just not true. As to the science issue, I read the wikipedia entry and I just don't see it. Sorry, the flames can begin now. I am tired of seeing half-truths and plain lies pawned off as facts.

Re:The more the better

[DarkKnightRadick]

and don't have to go on ObamaCare.

Re:The more the better

[thejynxed]

No, what they threatened was to seize the patents and bring them under US Government ownership if a settlement wasn't reached.

Re:The more the better

[samkass]

Yes they do. All "Obamacare" is is a requirement to have insurance, which they do. You can't "go on" Obamacare because the public option was shot down by the insurance industry special interests.

Re:The more the better

[kalislashdot]

OMG, from reading her Wikipedia article she is my ideal candidate. Amazing how to some these people are *crazy* and to others they are saints.

Re:The more the better

[Captain Splendid]

Not likely. If Angle wins, and that is highly likely, Righthaven can look forward to subtle changes in the law.

I've got an army of flesh-eating Disney lawyers that says otherwise.

Re:The more the better

[Phoobarnvaz]

I get it that lots of people don't like Harry Reid. That's fine. But angle is amazingly, dangerously, stupidly incompetent, and perhaps crazy.

She made a lot of noise about "second amendment remedies" if she doesn't get elected, and now has to back track that and either avoid questions, or blatantly state that she's not really advocating armed revolution.

Being from the Las Vegas area before moving to Southern Idaho...I have kept an eye on this campaign. While not liking any of the candidates...no matter where I live...she does take the cake for her morals/ethics (lack of them that is).

Having read the article...I find it funny that she/her delusional followers throw a fit over "supposed misrepresentations" of their views...but have no problem with theft...no matter if it's a troll doing the work or not. Her/her followers start throwing around terms they don't understand. The matter is that she/her staff didn't care about following the law. I doubt if any of them have even read...much less understand what law they've broken.

Even worse...they resort to throwing public fits when you point out their lack of education/stupidity. Reminds me of the line from "Animal House"..."Fat...drunk and stupid is no way to go through life." These people seem to have this down to a lifestyle and are even breeding.

Re:The more the better

[jambarama]

Angle won't win because they won't have a suit. Righthaven, once recognizing their mark isn't an easy one, will drop Angle from the suit, and nothing will change.

Re:The more the better

[DarkKnightRadick]

And Congress is exempt from the requirement to have insurance.

Re:The more the better

[Anonymous Coward]

The characterization presented by PyroMosh of the three stories is really a masterpiece of spin.

Sure, if by "spin" you mean "the absolute truth".

As to 'friends' with the media, she doesn't normally talk to media that is likely to do a hatchet job on her words.

Maybe if she wasn't batshit-fucking-insane, that wouldn't happen. Reporting what she said, in an unbiased manner (yes, that's what's happening - just because she's batshit-fucking-insane, that doesn't make the reporters biased) is by definition *not* a "hatchet job".

As to the science issue, I read the wikipedia entry and I just don't see it.

Voting against fluoridated drinking water isn't anti-science? What would you call it? She's a climate change denier, and claims that abortion leads to breast cancer. If you don't call that anti-science, then you're stupider than I first thought.

the flames can begin now.

You're welcome, I wouldn't want to disappoint you.

I am tired of seeing half-truths and plain lies pawned off as facts.

Then why are you defending Angle? The only half-truths and lies are being spread by her.

Re:The more the better

[rcamans]

Wait a minute. I like people suing senators and representatives. They seem like scum from where I am sitting.

And I am confused. How can posting an article about yourself be against any law? Seems to me if it is about you, you own it.

And since when does any publication have the right to sell rights to anything about you without you having any say in it? Especially to some anti-you company or individual?

Re:The more the better

[FatdogHaiku]

Don't forget their exemption from:
minimum wage laws
OSHA regulations
equal employment laws
the Americans With Disabilities Act
and the cash cow, a one-year lobbying restriction that applies to executive branch employees...

Re:The more the better

[Anonymous Coward]

We got a bunch of these folk on the north side of the US-Canada border too. Problem is that here they stay in power essentially until THEY want to have another election. And there is no real recall mechanism. Not that the competition to the C.R.A.P. (conservative reformed alliance party, i am not making this up) is any better. If there was an election, 'None of the Above' would win by a landslide.

Guess we are all sliding into a feudalistic society, where there are rules for the bosses and rules for the peasants -- all these politicos dont seem to think the law applies to them too. Pity I can't run my TV and laptop on 'spin'.

Guess I will go flip on Faux News to hear what I am supposed to be thinking... at least its not a 'telescreen'...yet.

Re:The more the better

[Neil_Brown]

you're a private citizen, then I believe you retain some rights over images and descriptions of yoursel

That may be the case under US law - as I say, I'm no expert in that side of things - but not under English copyright law. There's no reservation of rights of the subject (but there are moral rights of the author!), nor a fair dealing exception which covers this as such.

Re:The more the better

[Z00L00K]

At least the copyright shouldn't be transferable. Many copyright issues today depends on the fact that the owner of the copyright not necessarily is the creator.

Re:The more the better

[deniable]

And three obtuse angles can't form a triangle but can form a Sharon Angle. :)

Re:The more the better

[bill_mcgonigle]

blatantly state that she's not really advocating armed revolution

The sibling post noted that you may be taking her out of context, but supposing you're not - is your position that armed revolution is always wrong?

Re:The more the better

[Anonymous Coward]

You'll be first against the wall if I don't get elected.

Re:The more the better

[salesgeek]

After looking at all the companies that Righthaven has sued and the fact that they are suing a person who will likely replace Harry Reid in their own state, you've got to wonder what they are thinking.

Re:The more the better

[salesgeek]

I wasn't talking about the lawsuit, I was talking about the election.

Re:The more the better

[Raenex]

Not only did she NOT advocate any armed revolution, she said so.

She may have said "I hope that's not where we're going", but she sure did sound like advocating for it as a next step if the votes don't go her party's way: http://www.nationalreview.com/battle10/243092/new-harry-reid-ad-says-angle-over-line-second-amendment-rhetoric-elizabeth-crum

"our Founding Fathers, they put that Second Amendment in there for a good reason and that was for the people to protect themselves against a tyrannical government, and in fact Thomas Jefferson said it's good for a country to have a revolution every twenty years."

"They're afraid they'll have to fight for their liberty in more Second Amendment kinds of ways? That's why I look at this as almost an imperative. If we don't win at the ballot box, what will be the next step?"

What if a Democratic candidate said something like this during elections in the Bush years? Would you have given them a free pass?

Re:The more the better

[A nonymous Coward]

The funniest aspect is how she was a birther and possibly a truther, and had many other kook positions, during the primary, but when she won that, those parts of her campaign disappeared from her website ... until Harry Reid posted them on *his* website, and she objected that he was distorting her positions. I think she actually sued or filed a complaint with the FEC. A real nutter. I think she'd be pretty harmless in the Senate, being much too kooky to be effective and trustworthy. She's good at making noise, not much else.

Re:The more the better

[demonlapin]

You don't own the copyright to stories about you, and you can't prevent their publication unless it's libelous - which is a bar that a candidate for Senate in the US would essentially never reach.

Re:The more the better

[smellsofbikes]

Hopefully Righthaven finds more politicians to sue. Lots more. Then maybe - just maybe - will we get some consumer friendly copyright laws. In this case it would appear that Sharron Angle is indeed guilty of willful infringement, but if more politicians get hurt in their own pocket by copyright suits then the chance of them creating laws that states that damages must fit the crime may actually come into effect. That would kill the business model behind the *IAA cartel suits.

Put me down as exceedingly dubious that it'll actually have anything like that effect. What I think is much more likely will be what John McCain proposed when Jackson Browne sued him for using Browne's songs without permission. McCain promptly introduced legislation to exempt politicians from copyright infringement violations when they were using the material for their campaigns. The rest of us would still be just as on the hook. The proposed bill didn't go anywhere that time, but if stuff like this keeps going, I bet we'll see it come back.

Re:The more the better

[TheLink]

Democracy at work. No surprise when you have voters that are a diverse population of greatly varying backgrounds, interests, etc.

Might help if the median+average education levels and critical thinking levels were higher though ;).

Then at least you have a good reason when voting for or against someone.

Not because you think that person is X or did Y even though he/she isn't and didn't!

Re:The more the better

[phantomfive]

I get it that lots of people don't like Harry Reid. That's fine. But angle is amazingly, dangerously, stupidly incompetent, and perhaps crazy.

I kind of figured it was like the Kerry/Bush election. I didn't like Kerry at all, he was awful, but I couldn't bring myself to reward Bush for what he had done by voting for him.

She made a lot of noise about "second amendment remedies" if she doesn't get elected, and now has to back track that and either avoid questions, or blatantly state that she's not really advocating armed revolution. Always a good sign.

In other words, she had her own version of what was in the sig of some guy here on slashdot, "soap box, ballot box, ammo box, in that order."

This one is golden. The idea that she should be "friends" with the media and they should report what *she* wants? HILARIOUS!

Oh, so politicians say stupid things. Like Harry Reid and his racist comments. I'm not bringing this up because I think Harry Reid is racist, I don't, but to show that politicians say stupid things, and Angle isn't the only one, her opponent does too (although he is, frankly, more experienced and careful).

Or just take your pick. She wants most of the federal government abolished

I hate to break it to you, but a good portion of America agrees with that position. Certainly the Republican party in Nevada does, that's why they voted for her. Be careful not to confuse "dangerously, stupidly incompetent" with "someone I disagree with," you're getting close to that line.

People generally prefer to vote for an idiot who will do what they want over an intelligent person who does what they don't want. I'm not trying to prove that one candidate is better, just trying to explain why people vote for someone who says idiotic things. If saying idiotic things were the only thing that mattered, Biden would be out of a job a long time ago.

Re:The more the better

[mabhatter654]

we definitely need to put all Republicans on the "Do Not Fly" list after comments like this. I've heard more comments about "second amendment" rights from rabid Republicans in the last 18 months than I ever heard from Democrats. Democrats very clearly went out after Bush and pushed hard to get folks to VOTE for change. Republicans aren't getting any sympathy because their party was clearly not "Republican" for the previous 8 years, it was something like an armed camp. All the "average joe" Republicans would have been labeled "terrorists" 24 months ago, hell we were afraid of being on the "no fly" list just for Slashdot posts... and these people are saying this stuff in public assembly and the media.

Forget "election" time, these guys started talking like this BEFORE Obama was even in office conveniently ignoring the fact that "their man" walked away from all the responsibility to fix ANYTHING long before the elections ever happened.... like an Executive riding out severance for their "golden parachute".

Re:The more the better

[DarkKnightRadick]

Don't remind me. ):

Re:The more the better

[LordLimecat]

Regardless of how you feel about her stances, it does sound like she makes rather foolish statements that dont inspire a lot of confidence.

Re:The more the better

[Xtifr]

The rights under US law are not, as far as I know, part of copyright law per se. I don't know whether the UK has any sort of equivalent rights, but if they do, limiting your search to copyright laws may not be the best way to find them.

Re:The more the better

[LordLimecat]

AFAIK that is not correct-- if you are in a public place with no reasonable expectation of privacy, then a photographer may photograph you, or your children, or house, or car, and then publish the resulting photo without any notice or permission to you. I am sure the same would doubly apply to articles or interviews barring any slander / libel issues.

Taken from http://krages.com/phoright.htm

Re:The more the better

[CptNerd]

"You Know Reid, Why Not Try Angle?"

Re:The more the better

[Golddess]

That would imply that it is possible for them to opt-out of the health insurance that the government provides for them.

Is it? Because I honestly do not know.

Re:The more the better

[DarkKnightRadick]

To be honest, I'm not sure. It could be. It's not like employer-provided health insurance used to be mandatory.

With what they make, though, they don't really need it. Just more pork for them.

Re:The more the better

[jc42]

... those parts of her campaign disappeared from her website ... until Harry Reid posted them on *his* website, and she objected that he was distorting her positions.

She should learn the new, modern way of dealing with people quoting you accurately: Sue them for copyright infringement. I think there was a story about that recently on /. Now where did I see it ? ...

Re:The more the better

[MJMullinII]

You may want to read this.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/02/AR2010070203977.html

Harry has already done enough to ruin the country.

Harry Reid isn't the Senator "for the country", he is a Senator for the State of Nevada and for the State of Nevada, he has done a whole hell of a lot.

I could point to the fact that PRECISELY BECAUSE of Harry Reid, Nevada won't be another Nuclear Waste Dump Pork Project -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste_repository

I do not understand this call of "well, this congressperson didn't represent the country..." IT'S NOT THEIR JOB TO REPRESENT "The country", it is THEIR job to represent the people who elect them to their seats.

For that reason, I don't understand why anyone thinks Nancy Pelosi (she seems to be the target of much mockery, so I will use her as an example, but it really applies to anyone on Congress) gives two shits what some asshat in Texas thinks of her (again, Texas is just an example of an area where a lot of mockery seems to come from, I'm not in any way saying it is only Texas).

The only people Nancy Pelosi need give a shit about are the people of the 8th Congressional District of California -- THEY and they alone "put her in her place" and THEY and they alone can remove her from Congress.

p.s. I'm speaking of her as a Congressperson, not specifically as "Speaker of the House", I'm well aware that she most certainly will not be speaker of the house come next term if Democrats do not maintain a majority...my point was that she will still be IN CONGRESS so long as the people of the 8th Congressional District of California continue sending her back.

Re:The more the better

[Neil_Brown]

limiting your search to copyright laws may not be the best way to find them.

I appreciate where you are coming from - but you are looking for a right which "trumps" the restrictions of copyright, to enable someone who is neither an owner, nor a licensor, to make use of a work restricted by copyright in a manner which (but for this right?) requires permission. I'm not aware of *any* provision of English law which confers such a right, or else grants permission.

I could be wrong, of course, although the above is the best of my knowledge after 8 or so years of studying, and, subsequently, practising, geeky law. However, I'm always pleased to learn something new :)

Re:The more the better

[bluefoxlucid]

People generally prefer to vote for an idiot who will do what they want over an intelligent person who does what they don't want.

Losing battle. You can either vote for an idiot that'll fuck everything up; or someone actually intelligent who is pure evil.

Re:The more the better

[bluefoxlucid]

Yucca Mountain happens to be the only safe place to store the shit. It's a giant rock that you can stick shit under, and it'll block radiation. On top of that, they do research inside the waste site; this means they stick shit in radiation-impervious steel barrels so it's a non-issue sitting at ground level, effectively. Where else are you gonna put it all?

Re:The more the better

[Anonymous Coward]

For even better qualifications of Nevada candidates read the Wikipedia article of former Republican hopeful Sue Lowden. I think decades old beauty contests are soooo applicable! At one time she had the beauty queen info in line 1.

Re:The more the better

[Xtifr]

you are looking for a right which "trumps" the restrictions of copyright, to enable someone who is neither an owner, nor a licensor, to make use of a work

No, no, a right that allows someone not the owner or licensor to restrict the use of the work, not to make use of it. I don't know of anything in US law that would allow the latter.

The person I was originally responding to said, "if I photograph you walking down the street, the photograph is mine, not yours." That's true as far as copyright goes, but there are other rights involved--personality and privacy rights--which may further restrict the use of the photograph.

Re:The more the better

[MJMullinII]

Yucca Mountain happens to be the only safe place to store the shit. It's a giant rock that you can stick shit under, and it'll block radiation. On top of that, they do research inside the waste site; this means they stick shit in radiation-impervious steel barrels so it's a non-issue sitting at ground level, effectively. Where else are you gonna put it all?

Yucca Mountain is the biggest Nuclear Pork Project of all time.

We don't need "some place to stick the shit under"...97% of what you call "shit" is FUEL that can be reused in Nuclear Power Plants.

Now, it makes no sense to Reprocess the fuel right now because Uranium is still cheaper to mine, but that won't always be the case. When it isn't, we'll have HUNDREDS AND HUNDREDS OF YEARS worth of Nuclear Fuel sitting quietly in these stainless steel casks (which you would practically need a f$%king tactical Nuclear Weapon to penetrate, anyway).

I favor the approach Westinghouse has used with the AP1000 -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AP1000

"Radioactive waste -- a longstanding concern of environmental advocates and nuclear power critics -- can be stored indefinitely in water on the plant site, company officials said." -- http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09088/959091-96.stm

The problem of "radioactive waste" is the biggest INVENTED problem of all time. It DOES NOT exist anywhere outside of the media.

The only real "waste" are things like clothing, gloves, building materials, dirt, etc. that have become radioactive. All of that equals about 1% of what people count as "waste".

Basically, you need nothing more than a dust mask and thick rubber gloves to safely pick it up -- you could bury it in a whole the size of an Olympic sized swimming pool and never think about it again.

Re:The more the better

[flowwolf]

Thank you for the answer. It was very enlightening.

Re:The more the better

[riverat1]

Members of Congress have the same health care options as all other Federal Employees. I assume they are subject to the penalty the same as anyone else if they refuse the coverage and don't buy other coverage.

Re:The more the better

[infinitelink]

...but I don't think they can publish without your permission.

Not true. The publisher/author/s, however, could be liable for libel, that is, any publication about another puts them in the possible hot seat for suit. On the other hand, if they can show their work is factual then they're not liable for libel. In the U.S. the test is truth.

Re:The more the better

[PyroMosh]

It's not always wrong. There are things worth fighting for. There are things worth dieing for.

Turning to "Second Amendment Remedies" if she happens to loose a democratic election is not one of them.

Re:The more the better

[bluefoxlucid]

We don't need "some place to stick the shit under"...97% of what you call "shit" is FUEL that can be reused in Nuclear Power Plants.

Problem: This produces weapons-grade refined nuclear material, which by treaty we're not allowed to produce. The refining and feeding in of spent fuel for more fuel is great in theory; but look at the politics involved, and you start to see a thin and ineffective attempt at preventing weaponized nuclear programs.

Re:The more the better

[Anonymous Coward]

For extra credit: name the one Federal building where smoking is allowed, being specificially exempted by Congress when smoking in all other Federal buildings was prohibited.....

Re:The more the better

[DarkKnightRadick]

Only the law was specifically worded to give them that loophole. RTL.

Re:The more the better

[MJMullinII]

We don't need "some place to stick the shit under"...97% of what you call "shit" is FUEL that can be reused in Nuclear Power Plants.

Problem: This produces weapons-grade refined nuclear material, which by treaty we're not allowed to produce. The refining and feeding in of spent fuel for more fuel is great in theory; but look at the politics involved, and you start to see a thin and ineffective attempt at preventing weaponized nuclear programs.

Uh...I believe you might be mistaken, I know of no (and have been unable to find one since reading your reply) of any "treaty" signed by the United States preventing our reprocessing of our own spent Nuclear Fuel.

I know that in the 70s, former President Carter (for the reasons you mentioned) issued an executive order forbidding the use of Public Money in the operation or construction of Reprocessing Plants, but that was overturned less than three years later by former President Reagan.

It was really politics on both sides because (as I stated earlier) Reprocessing is a waste of money, period, at the moment because it is cheaper to simply mine new Uranium.

However, we do know for a fact that eventually that won't be the case so I do not see the logic of putting this amount of money and time (getting back to Yucca Mountain) putting this (soon to be) highly valuable and sought after fuel source completely out of reach for time in memorial (speaking of the plans of permanently sequestering the stuff underground.

The French (who receive 80% of their electricity from Nuclear Energy) do not behave so shortsightedly and I do not think we should either.

P.S. - I wasn't be facetious when I said I couldn't find the treaty you spoke of, if you are able to find a link I could read, I would be most appreciative.

Re:The more the better

[bluefoxlucid]

"Reprocessing nuclear fuel" isn't the language. "Producing nuclear weapons" is the language you're looking for. Refined spent nuclear fuel is weaponized nuclear material, regardless of use. Welcome to politics.

Re:The more the better

[MJMullinII]

"Reprocessing nuclear fuel" isn't the language. "Producing nuclear weapons" is the language you're looking for. Refined spent nuclear fuel is weaponized nuclear material, regardless of use. Welcome to politics.

The United States has signed no such treaty to limit production of Nuclear Weapons.

During the Bush Administration, a treaty was proposed to eliminate the production of "Weapons Material", but it never came to anything.

There is nothing preventing us from reprocessing Nuclear Fuel except our own decisions not to do it (for the reasons I mentioned earlier-- cost, etc.)

Re:The more the better

[seekertom]

i think it still hits our pockets... we pay their bills, don't we?

TFA is not very informative.

[jmerlin]

It'd be nice to see what content was allegedly copied. If that material is freely available on the LV RJ website, I don't think there's much of a case here, it's just trolls grasping at straws again. But we don't know, because that's how trolls work: stay hidden, be vague, try to steal as much money as possible via government enforced monopolies.

In reality, how much would this possibly have cost? A print copy (if the articles are in print only) sitting in a doctors' office might get what.. 50.. 100 reads for the single copy? People get paper copies then give them away because they're just trash.. are they going to claim 100x the cost of the print times some "assumed number of page hits" as damages? I don't see that any reasonable estimate would be worth the time nor effort of buying a copyright then suing. They must be going for millions, when actual damages may be under $5000. Mmm.. gotta love them trolls.

I'm also curious why, when the articles were discovered and there was no permission given to copy them, why the owner of the site wasn't asked to take them down? Usually this is the first course, and if they don't, then you sue for damages. Do trolls not even have 1 shred of decency?

Re:TFA is not very informative.

[Anonymous Coward]

Righthaven has been at this for a number of weeks. Basically, they clearly don't understand how useful people linking to the LVRJ articles are, nor do they understand the application of proper liability. As far as Righthaven is concerned, if anyone anywhere copies three words from an article and links back to the original, that's bad. Techdirt's been following the situation pretty well. This post in particular highlights how ridiculous their stance is.

Knowing this, the AP/Yahoo don't want to risk a lawsuit by enhancing the article by doing something as simple as link to the LVRJ. Of course, it's you and I who suffer.

Re:TFA is not very informative.

[nospam007]

"A print copy (if the articles are in print only) sitting in a doctors' office might get what.. 50.. 100 reads..."

The doctor will get sued next.

Re:TFA is not very informative.

[TFAFalcon]

If the law allows them to sue for a 3 word 'infringement' then perhaps the law should be changed? And who is i na better position to change the law then a politician?

Re:TFA is not very informative.

[b4dc0d3r]

The law allows them to sue for any reason. I could sue you because you're wearing a purple tie. You'd be a "John Doe" until I subpoenaed Slashdot's IP data, then used that to subpoena your ISP to find out who you are, and then replace "John Doe" with your information. You're sued.

The chance of it not being thrown out is another story. If you can prove that 3 words were vital to the story or some argument, you might keep the case alive. Most likely, it's going to go nowhere.

Anyone can file a suit for anything.

Re:TFA is not very informative.

[Dachannien]

Righthaven has been at this for a number of weeks. Basically, they clearly don't understand how useful people linking to the LVRJ articles are

Actually, they don't care how useful it is. They are in this to extort money from people, regardless of the consequences to the newspapers.

It's the newspapers who don't understand that linking on the tubes is important to them. Instead, they see the promise of a fast buck from Righthaven, and they trip over themselves to get at the money.

Re:TFA is not very informative.

[demonlapin]

But they could make the law much more friendly to defendants - requiring Rightshaven to file in the alleged infringer's federal court, rather than in their own. That alone would significantly decrease the cost of defending one of these suits.

What is the name of the person in charge?

[RocketRabbit]

What's the name of the person in charge of Righthaven? Seems to me that there is an evil, profiteering son of a bitch in charge of this hot mess of a company.

We need to start suing his ass.

Re:What is the name of the person in charge?

[Anonymous Coward]

I like to imagine it's someone called Baron Righthaven - at least with such an evil sounding charicature I can try and maintain my naive childhood view of good and evil in the world (and hope that a hero in shining armour will get around to slaying him when he's done rescuing princesses and such).

Re:What is the name of the person in charge?

[Sygnus]

Darl? Just sayin...

Re:What is the name of the person in charge?

[Penguinisto]

Start Here:

"Righthaven LLC is owned 50/50 by two limited liability companies. The first is Net Sortie Systems, LLC, which is owned by Las Vegas attorney Steven Gibson – the Nevada attorney who is behind all of the lawsuits filed by Righthaven. The second is SI Content Monitor LLC, which is owned by family members of investment banking billionaire Warren Stephens whose investments include Stephens Media, LLC which owns the Las Vegas Review-Journal. "

(...so they wanna sue me for reprinting that? Fuck 'em.)

Re:What is the name of the person in charge?

[Anonymous Coward]

What a sexist statement that is! It could just as easily be a woman.

is it really copyright trolling?

[zaphod777]

I thought this type of thing is pretty straight forward you can't reprint something without prior permission from the copyright holder.

Re:is it really copyright trolling?

[Andorin]

Righthaven did not create the article in question. They bought the rights from the creators solely so they could sue the infringer and profit from her. That sounds like copyright trolling to me.

Re:is it really copyright trolling?

[clarkkent09]

Its copyright trolling at its best. There are several amusing parts to this story. The smug smile on the Righthaven CEOs Steve Gibsons (new Darl?) face as he openly brags about his business plan being all about extorting settlement money which the victims generally would rather pay then spend more on legal fees and not being interested in ending infringements, on the contrary, the more infringements the better. The legally dubious tactic of not sending takedown notices or but going straight to the lawsuit, demanding $150,000 and then settling for a much smaller amount. Also, the fact that the Review Journal is generally seen as a newspaper with conservative/libertarian bias and it strongly endorsed Sharron Angle, and now (through Righthaven) is suing her for posting two articles which praised her on her website.

Re:is it really copyright trolling?

[delinear]

Yes it baffles me that you can buy into a situation like that will full prior knowledge and still be allowed to even raise an action in court. In most situations if you knowingly put yourself in a position of harm in order to benefit through legal action (for instance, throwing yourself in front of a car so you can sue the insurance company) and were stupid enough to admit it, you'd be looking at prison time.

Re:is it really copyright trolling?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this the same Steve Gibson of www.GRC.COM?

Re:is it really copyright trolling?

[TheRaven64]

he openly brags about his business plan being all about extorting settlement money which the victims generally would rather pay then spend more on legal fees

That might be a pretty fatal mistake. In a lot of jurisdictions, that would qualify as barratry. Even the RIAA make an effort to maintain the pretence that they want to end infringement and get fair recompense from pirates, and they're skirting dangerously close to the edge.

I really hope they try this in Texas, where barratry is a felony.

Re:is it really copyright trolling?

[ThoughtMonster]

Just because they sued doesn't mean they have a valid case (assuming the case hasn't yet gone through the preliminaries).

Re:is it really copyright trolling?

[Sycraft-fu]

Unfortunately copyright law is not all that sensible these days. Big media has pushed for, and got, a lot of changes made, all of which make things more of the "zero tolerance" kind of setup. One example would be statutory damages. One would think that copyright damages would have to be actual and punitive only. After all, the whole point of copyright is so you can make money on your work. So to succeed you should need to prove damages. In the event of willful infringement, a court might then also impose punitive damages, that is pretty common. Tripling the actual damages is often the case.

However that'd mean someone downloading 100 songs online might get sued for like $400. You'll notice that's not the case, they are sued for millions. How's that? Because the law specifies statutory damages. That means that doesn't matter what the intent was or if there was any harm, you can get hit with a ton of damages. Up to $250,000 per incident.

Makes no sense at all in the reasoning for copyright, which according to the Constitution is "To promote the progress of science and useful arts." However it is real useful to step on people.

So while the case may be bullshit in the logical sense, it may well be on the up and up with regards to copyright law. I have no idea, it is far, FAR too complex for anyone who isn't a legal expert in it to understand.

Re:is it really copyright trolling?

[BasilBrush]

Righthaven did not create the article in question. They bought the rights from the creators solely so they could sue the infringer and profit from her. That sounds like copyright trolling to me.

No, that makes it sound like the LV Review Journal aren't party to it. In fact the owners of the NVRJ also own Rightshaven. They set up the arrangement to pursue copyright infringers.
  http://www.lvrj.com/blogs/sherm/Copyright_theft_Were_not_taking_it_anymore.html?ref=164

There's no copyright trolling here. Just a case of setting up a separate company to do the pursuit of copyright infringement. A company which can then also offer that service to other content creators.

It's perfectly reasonable. Neither LV RJ nor Rightshaven are at fault here. The only people who are at fault are those who steal their content rather than create it themselves; who copy and paste rather than link; who go beyond fair use, and just reproduce the whole article.

Re:is it really copyright trolling?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes it baffles me that you can buy into a situation like that will full prior knowledge and still be allowed to even raise an action in court.

A company which has copyrights/patents it does not wish to exert towards its users gets bought by another company. That other company than starts to pursue them.

Although the "bought themselves into the situation" it seems to have got all the rights to do so. So why not this Righthaven company ?

Disclaimer : I have no idea what that Righthaven companies motives are, and in the above reply I did not consider them.

Re:is it really copyright trolling?

[BasilBrush]

The copyright infringer has done exactly the same wrong, no matter who legally owns the rights. All we have here is the newspaper outsourcing their pursuit of copyright infringers to a separate company. And they've decided between them that the most effective way to do that is to assign the rights to the company that's doing the pursuing.

Re:is it really copyright trolling?

[elronxenu]

Yes, it seems pretty sensible. Righthaven was not harmed at the time of publication. They clearly looked for an infringement and then brought the harm upon themselves.

On the other hand, it could be said that the Las Vegas Review-Journal had suffered harm, and Righthaven bought the rights, thus relieving LVRJ of the harm and taking it upon themselves.

Re:is it really copyright trolling?

[BasilBrush]

That might be a pretty fatal mistake. In a lot of jurisdictions, that would qualify as barratry.

I think for barratry the lawsuits would have to be generally without merit. These copyright infringements seem perfectly real. There might be a defence against them in cases where the copyright material has been posted in user forums. Safe harbour defence would work. But where a blogger has posted a news story from the paper, in full, and the blogger is the one being sued, then there seems nothing legally wrong with persuing them in order to extract recompense.

Re:is it really copyright trolling?

[prefect42]

I'd look at it differently. Is there any reason why transferring ownership of this work would lose you the right to pursue misuse of that work? The reality here is that the car crash has already happened.

Re:is it really copyright trolling?

[julesh]

Yes it baffles me that you can buy into a situation like that will full prior knowledge and still be allowed to even raise an action in court. In most situations if you knowingly put yourself in a position of harm in order to benefit through legal action (for instance, throwing yourself in front of a car so you can sue the insurance company) and were stupid enough to admit it, you'd be looking at prison time.

Wrong metaphor. Suing for copyright infringement isn't about compensation for harm, it's about enforcing a property right. The equivalent "real" transaction is buying a house with a sitting tenant, and then expecting them to pay rent even if they haven't been paying the previous owner.

Re:is it really copyright trolling?

[shentino]

More like they exploited the ignorance of the person whose rights were infringed and got a bargain on the sale by keeping it a secret that they could have sued the infringer themselves.

A more accurate analogy would be using a metal detector to snoop around on someone's land and finding a huge pile of buried gold, then making a low ball offer to the property owner who doesn't know about it.

Re:is it really copyright trolling?

[thejynxed]

It's more than legally dubious, it violates some provisions of the DMCA if they are not first sending the takedown notice. There are steps to be taken, and judges don't take a kind view on people who don't follow those steps, no matter who you are.

Re:is it really copyright trolling?

[xigxag]

This has nothing to do with DMCA. It's just regular copyright. Generally speaking, you don't have to warn people in advance before taking them to court. And when notice is given (and not a statutory requirement), it's done, not as a favor to the putative defendant, but as a convenience to the plaintiff, in order to save on their own time and legal costs. But generally, the "warning" is the summons itself. Between service and the court date, there's plenty of time to hammer out a settlement if the parties are amenable to doing so.

Re:is it really copyright trolling?

[russotto]

I think for barratry the lawsuits would have to be generally without merit. These copyright infringements seem perfectly real. There might be a defence against them in cases where the copyright material has been posted in user forums. Safe harbour defence would work. But where a blogger has posted a news story from the paper, in full, and the blogger is the one being sued, then there seems nothing legally wrong with persuing them in order to extract recompense.

Except that the way the system is set up, RightHaven isn't relying on actually having a legitimate case. They're relying on a defense against even a flimsy case being even more expensive than settling, and on the cost of losing being ruinous.

Re:is it really copyright trolling?

[BasilBrush]

Except that the way the system is set up, RightHaven isn't relying on actually having a legitimate case. They're relying on a defense against even a flimsy case being even more expensive than settling, and on the cost of losing being ruinous.

Says who? The case mentioned in the summary seems quite clear. The politician reproduced 2 articles on her website, without seeking permission. If that's true, how exactly do you imagine it is flimsy? Seems a very straightforward case of copyright infringement.

Re:is it really copyright trolling?

[braeldiil]

This isn't throwing yourself in front of a car. They didn't induce the violation - Sharron Angle did that all on her own. This is a collection action. There's no real difference between this situation and someone who skipped out on their rent or a phone bill. Instead of forcing each individual firm to maintain an extensive collection department, you sell the debt to a collection firm, and let the experts attempt to recover the money. And while individual collection firms do cross the line, the concept of specialist firms taking difficult tasks to free people to work at what they're good at is a cornerstone of our economy.

Re:is it really copyright trolling?

[jfengel]

Exactly. I think of them as like a collection agency, buying up a debt. In this case the debt isn't as clear-cut as that a collection agency buys: you don't a bill you can point to, and you may have to sue to get it.

But if you have in fact been legally infringed, you're (legally) owed the money, and might as well sell off that hard-to-collect debt. (Whether you're morally entitled to that debt is a different question, and not one for the courts.)

Re:is it really copyright trolling?

[jc42]

Makes no sense at all in the reasoning for copyright, which according to the Constitution is "To promote the progress of science and useful arts." However it is real useful to step on people.

Well, a number of historians have pointed out that copyright (and patent) laws have never produced such progress. Historically, they have only been used to block progress. And it's quite clear that this is usually intentional.

This is pretty much all that copyright laws can do, since "progress of science and useful arts" requires information, and the only function of copyright is to prevent distribution of information. Copyright laws never require distribution of information; they only deal with when such distribution is prohibited.

We do have examples like the GPL, which does require distribution of information (specifically the source code to software). But this isn't anything mentioned in copyright law; it's a license provided by the copyright owner of their own volition.

It's quite likely that the people who wrote that "promote the progress of science and useful arts" phrase into the US Constitution were aware of the inhibiting effect that copyright and patent law usually has on such progress. They tried to restrict the use of copyright and patent law in the US to only actions that would produce progress. But the legal system has pretty much ignored that phrase, and the US has copyright law that's just as anti-progress as in the rest of the world.

Re:is it really copyright trolling?

[TubeSteak]

One example would be statutory damages. One would think that copyright damages would have to be actual and punitive only. After all, the whole point of copyright is so you can make money on your work. So to succeed you should need to prove damages. In the event of willful infringement, a court might then also impose punitive damages, that is pretty common. Tripling the actual damages is often the case.

Copyright is about my right to publish.
My right to control publication can be infringed whether or not I make a profit.
That right, by itself, is worth something. Hence the statuatory damages.

Makes no sense at all in the reasoning for copyright, which according to the Constitution is "To promote the progress of science and useful arts." However it is real useful to step on people

You're right, it doesn't make any sense, if you don't quote the whole thing:
"To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;"

Exclusive right.
Oops... your whole argument just fell apart.

Re:is it really copyright trolling?

[Scott Wood]

Copyright is about my right to publish.
My right to control publication can be infringed whether or not I make a profit.

Under what circumstances does society have an interest in granting you this artificial right? Generally, the justification is that without the ability to make money off of the work, fewer works would get created, because the would-be creators (not to mention the supporting roles such as editor, QA, audio/video technician, etc) would be busy doing something else that pays the rent and keeps food on the table. The goal is not (or rather, should not be) control in and of itself.

That right, by itself, is worth something. Hence the statuatory damages.

Is it worth $250,000? Is it worth the loss to society of the ability to make full use of the work?

Re:is it really copyright trolling?

[Scott Wood]

Throwing yourself in front of a car is actually creating the harm, which is not the same thing as merely being aware of the harm and planning to seek redress after purchase. While this particular situation is pretty scummy, consider the consequences that such a rule would produce.

Company A sues company B for some completely legitimate reason. Company C buys company A in its entirety -- the transaction would have happened whether or not the issue with company B existed. Why is company B off the hook?

Joe buys a house from Bob. This land, like all others in the area, has contaminated soil due to the activities of nearby EvilCorp. Joe buys it anyway because there's not much of an alternative. Should Joe not be able to join the class action lawsuit against EvilCorp, to help pay for cleanup?

Re:is it really copyright trolling?

[russotto]

Says Wired. It doesn't matter if any particular case is straightforward or not, what matters is that the method they use works whether the case is flimsy or strong, without regard to its strength.

Re:is it really copyright trolling?

[BasilBrush]

By that line of reasoning, a locksmith is a burglar, because the methods he uses to open locked doors could be used for burglary. Even if he doesn't do that.

Wired's opinion isn't worth much. They hype stories up. What's needed is an example case where copyright has not been broken, but Rightshaven have still pursued and won. Only then is it right to call them trolls. Otherwise all we have here is a company that is employed to persue people that rip off a newspaper's content. Which is using the law as it's intended.

Buying rights with the purpose to sue!

[wvmarle]

Let's call this a very interesting business model. Or should I say bizarre business model. Maybe one should start making a list of companies with bizarre business models, this should be on the top.

Also the Review-Journal publication should be careful to keep track of which articles they have sold off the rights, otherwise they may end up on the receiving end of a law suit.

Otoh as this troll appears to only handle Review-Journal articles, and obviously can easily buy copyrights from this journal (I can't think of many papers that are so happy to sell the copyrights on their articles - this must be a complete transfer of copyright, not just a license), it sounds like they are a related company one way or another, and basically suing on behalf of Review-Journal just under a different name.

At first I misread the headline as "patent troll". This is not too different. But at least these copyright trolls sue people that really should know better - it is after all much easier to unknowingly infringe on patents than copyrights. Copying stuff verbatim without asking permission is silly, especially when done by a public figure.

Re:Buying rights with the purpose to sue!

[GWRedDragon]

Also the Review-Journal publication should be careful to keep track of which articles they have sold off the rights, otherwise they may end up on the receiving end of a law suit.

They probably sold the copyright, and as a part of the deal got an unlimited license for it.

Re:Buying rights with the purpose to sue!

[jmerlin]

This really just should be made illegal. Both for copyrights and patents. Purchasing an intellectual monopoly with intent to cause fiscal harm to another party is profiteering and should be made illegal. The punishment? No less than jailtime for the trolls involved, and it should pierce the corporate veil to nab the CEOs that permit this kind of scheme to happen. Intellectual monopoly have been under scrutiny for a very long time as "not working" and inhibiting intellectual progress, but permitting this kind of action most definitely is a direct inhibition of progress and a blatant abuse of the system. Sure, abolishing both would be best, but for now, hopefully criminalizing profiteering with copyrights and patents should stop at least some of the abuse.

Re:Buying rights with the purpose to sue!

[micheas]

Although, if someone is infringing on your copyright and you cannot afford to take legal action, shouldn't you be able to sell the work including all legal claims/liabilities?

Personally I would rather get rid of the doctrine of "holder in due course". Which seems to incite fraud, this just seems to incite vigilantism against those that thought that the victim was to inconsequential to worry about.

Re:Buying rights with the purpose to sue!

[TFAFalcon]

There is a difference between patent and copyright trolls.

With patent trolls and the current state of the patent system, there doesn't have to be any actual link between the patent and the product for the 'infringing party' to be held liable, as long as the patent holder has enough lawyers.

With copyright at least you can clearly see that someone copied your work.

So why not give people the ability to buy 'suing rights'?

Re:Buying rights with the purpose to sue!

[advocate_one]

"Although, if someone is infringing on your copyright and you cannot afford to take legal action, shouldn't you be able to sell the work including all legal claims/liabilities?"

it wasn't your copyright when they infringed it though... this is what the Judges should be throwing these cases out for, lack of standing at the time the alleged infringement took place.

Re:Buying rights with the purpose to sue!

[advocate_one]

please ignore the above, I replied to the wrong post... arghh!!! damn this stupid posting timer...

Re:Buying rights with the purpose to sue!

[quantumRage]

from http://www.righthavenlawsuits.com/

Righthaven LLC is owned 50/50 by two limited liability companies. The first is Net Sortie Systems, LLC, which is owned by Las Vegas attorney Steven Gibson – the Nevada attorney who is behind all of the lawsuits filed by Righthaven. The second is SI Content Monitor LLC, which is owned by family members of investment banking billionaire Warren Stephens whose investments include Stephens Media, LLC which owns the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

It looks to me that Review-Journal is part of this troll-scheme.

Re:Buying rights with the purpose to sue!

[BasilBrush]

It is therefore not a troll-scheme. Just a content producer seeking recompense for the use without permission of content that he has paid his staff to produce.

Re:Buying rights with the purpose to sue!

[quantumRage]

If they didn't send a takedown notice, and TFA didn't mention it, they are trolls in my eyes.

Re:Buying rights with the purpose to sue!

[BasilBrush]

Takedown notices are only for the DMCA, where a service provider gets safe haven from prosecution for copyright infringement by a user of his service. He can keep his safe haven, so long as he does takedowns on request from copyright holders.

This is a plain old fashioned copyright matter. The creator of a website, has herself copied someone else's article. There is no requirement for a takedown notice.

If there were, it would of course give a free pass for copyright infringement to everyone on the internet, safe in the knowledge that they can copy other people's content, and couldn't face any penalty, as they'll get a warning first and can take down at that stage. With news, or blog articles, this takedown would come after the article has served it's purpose anyway.

This action isn't a troll at all. It's how the copyright law is supposed to work.

Re:Buying rights with the purpose to sue!

[CubicleView]

Agreed, in my opinion while they might not actually be trolls, they seem to have too much in common with one for comfort.

Re:Buying rights with the purpose to sue!

[shentino]

It's sorta like how SCO's legal claims would be inherited by the highest bidder if it were ever liquidated.

I think it's called a successor in interest.

Re:Buying rights with the purpose to sue!

[houghi]

As long as I am the owner, I should be able to do with it as I want and have all the legal rights to defend myself. However what should be important is the moment of purchase. So if I buy a copyright, I buy the rights from that moment on AND wave any previous rights.

The result will be that selling copyrights will be extremely hard to do, as the original copyright owner could be aware of any copyright infringement, but just decided not to do anything about it.

Re:Buying rights with the purpose to sue!

[xigxag]

I disagree. It's not that laws don't need to be reformed. It's that these kind of kneejerk, ahistorical, situationally expedient solutions usually have unintended results that are worse than the problem they are attempting to mitigate.

Consider: Your dad passes away suddenly, and you're going through his old effects and papers and realize that his partner's been ripping him off for years to the tune of millions of dollars. What can you do about it? Nothing, in your world, because you had "lack of standing at the time the alleged infringement took place."

Or you buy a house next to a scenic lake. After you've been living there a couple of months you start to feel sick. It turns out that the old Duponsanto plant for years had been dumping toxic waste into the lake and polluting the land. They cleared out about a year before you moved in, so you have no recourse because of "lack of standing at the time the alleged infringement took place."

But, on top of that, although the wording in the article is ambiguous, it seems likely to me that Righthaven purchased the rights to the work while the alleged infringement was still ongoing. So even going by your litmus test they would still have standing to bring suit.

Re:Buying rights with the purpose to sue!

[Solandri]

This really just should be made illegal. Both for copyrights and patents. Purchasing an intellectual monopoly with intent to cause fiscal harm to another party is profiteering and should be made illegal.

There's nothing wrong with suing for copyright/patent violation per se. You're forgetting that while yes, it causes fiscal harm to another, the "another" has already caused fiscal harm to the copyright/patent holder. In effect the lawsuit is just squaring the books and thus discouraging copyright/patent violation.

Where the problem comes about is when it becomes more profitable to file such suits than to normally sell the item under copyright/patent protection. The music industry has already passed this point (their current average settlement multiplied by the potential number of lawsuits they could bring far exceeds the entire RIAA's gross revenue). The Hurt Locker lawsuits come pretty close to this (~$15 million sought in settlements, vs. $15 mil production costs and $45 gross refenue). And in this particular case, since the company bought the rights to the article solely for the purpose of suing, that's a pretty clear sign that the lawsuit value of the copyright exceeded the value of the article under copyright itself.

When the value of a lawsuit for infringing a copyright/patent exceeds the market value of the work/invention used as intended, then you have a system which can be mathematically proven to be hurting the economy more than it helps any time a lawsuit happens. The solution is to scale back the awards in these suits so this is no longer the case.

Re:Buying rights with the purpose to sue!

[CptNerd]

Hasn't someone already patented this business model? Unless it's Gibson or Stevens, someone should sue them for patent infringement. $US 10,000,000,000 should do it.

What a choice...

[Anonymous Coward]

This is like choosing between Darth Vader and the Shredder from TMNT.

Such a tough decision who to support.

Meh, I'll just put them in a cage and hope something good comes out of it.

Re:What a choice...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd be content if nothing came out of it...

Re:What a choice...

[WrongSizeGlass]

I'd be content if nothing came out of it...

Nothing but may-hem, May-HEM, MAY-HEM!!!

Well, Yeah

[BenJCarter]

The party of trial lawyers isn't going to change without some feedback.

How do these people sleep at night.

[fredmosby]

I like to think that what I do at my job benefits other people. How can someone work a job where they harass people into giving them money, and nothing they do could possibly help anyone but themselves. Lawyers who file suits like these have the same effect on society as people who steal for a living. The only difference is they can't get arrested.

Re:How do these people sleep at night.

[mukund]

The bad sleep well indeed.

Re:How do these people sleep at night.

[Anonymous Coward]

nothing they do could possibly help anyone but themselves

That is a bit of an overstatement. Didn't you even read the summary? This suit will very likely benefit society as a whole; this is a REPUBLICAN candidate they are suing.

Re:How do these people sleep at night.

[interkin3tic]

Maybe they're scared that Sharon Angle will actually get elected. I mean, a look at her positions SHOULD scare even copyright trolls.

Lets see... Thinks rape and incest should not be an exception for abortion? Check. Thinks global warming is a conspiracy? Check. Eliminating the IRS (like, actually eliminating it, not just grumbling at tax time)? Check. Wants to continue the failed prohibition of marijuana? Check, and possibly wants to restart the prohibition on alcohol. Etc..

Sure, she's a republican, and so I'm going to disagree with her on a lot of things (like eliminating all federal influence over education and letting half the states teach that evolution is a lie made up by the devil), but I think her platform goes beyond reasonable. Is copyright trolling against dangerously out-of-touch politicians justified? Probably not, and it's not going to stop her, but this is really more funny in my book for now than an outrage.

Re:How do these people sleep at night.

[fredmosby]

In this case they're suing someone you don't like, but that's just a happy coincidence. From the article is sounds like the just go to work and sue random people to extort money from them all day. The people who originally wrote the articles don't even benefit from it.

Re:How do these people sleep at night.

[Black Parrot]

Maybe they're scared that Sharon Angle will actually get elected. I mean, a look at her positions SHOULD scare even copyright trolls.

Lets see... Thinks rape and incest should not be an exception for abortion? Check. Thinks global warming is a conspiracy? Check. Eliminating the IRS (like, actually eliminating it, not just grumbling at tax time)? Check. Wants to continue the failed prohibition of marijuana? Check, and possibly wants to restart the prohibition on alcohol. Etc..

Her hard-line views are what got her nominated.

What's funny is seeing all the "Tea Party" politicians running from the cameras, now that they've gotten nominated and don't want the broader public to know what their views are. Back in the regular world, politicians don't miss a chance to get in front of a camera and brag about their grand accomplishments and the more to come.

When a politician doesn't want media attention, you know something is *seriously* wrong.

Re:How do these people sleep at night.

[Anonymous Coward]

it does need to be said that the republican voterbase is growing at this time when common wisdom says it should be shrinking, and history seems to be repeating itself. Just like in 2001 when we elected bush, the dog is being wagged by it's tail here. Republicans are screaming that obama has not acomplished squat when he has done what he said he would do, the only legitimate gripe is that the economy is not growing at the rate predicted, however it is growing at a rate something on 4x faster than it did during the clinton presidency. Yet the republican and tea party rhetoric is saying that democrats are going to lose their voter base in the house and senate during the next election cycle and that Obama is going to be a one term president, when how they have performed in their jobs has been nothing short of amazing given the debacle that they inherited at the hands of a republican president, house of representatives and senate. Someone needs to stand up to the talking heads and demand that the truth be told here, or we do stand a chance of having the government swing to the right at a very bad time and with disasterous effects. Please do me the courtesy of not just deleting this post as it needs to be said, is relevant and is only slightly off topic. It is on topic in that things like this need to affect the fact that the republican position in this election cycle is one that needs to show that when you disrespect a sitting president, and all of your actions are about rhetorical criticisms and are thinly veiled attempts at a power grab, and not rightly motivated action at improving the quality of life for Americans, you have set yourself up for failure. I hope that the republicans lose their ability to fillibuster and we actually can get some things done in the 2nd half of Obama's first term, things that needed to get done during to last half of Bush's last term but werent going to happen. These things I speak of are winding down of the wars in Iraq and Afganistan, serious help for th economy and unprecedented ammounts of action to do something about global warming. The republican angle on global warming is chapeter and verse what I am talking about. There is no scientific debate, global warming is happening and we can do things to minimize the damage. The republicans have the public almost convinced that there is scientific debate that global warming is happening and that is 100% BS. Do you really want to put people in office, running the country that believe that what there is already a scientific consensus on and can make or break the lives of our children and our childrens children for the sake of a power grab is just a debate that is standing in the way of their takeover of the government? Me neither! so Please vote accordingly!

Voice of Reason

Re:How do these people sleep at night.

[TFAFalcon]

But in a way these trolls do encourage the creation of new works.

Think about it. If you write a good enough article that someone with cash copies without your permission, then these guys come along and buy the rights to your article. It's almost exactly like record companies, except you don't have to deal with them until you have your creative work completed and published, so you can gauge the public response to it, and it's subsequent value. With a record company you have to sign over all rights (for a fraction of their probable worth), and they'll keep 99% of the money if your work is a success, or stick you with the bill if it's a flop.

Re:How do these people sleep at night.

[vadim_t]

On top of a pile of money with many beautiful ladies

Re:How do these people sleep at night.

[Asic Eng]

No she doesn't. Like many conservatives she thinks that there is enough doubt about causes of warming and the effects, if any, that the proposed policies would have on it not to proceed with measures that could seriously damage the economy.

Yes, and there is no scientific basis for these doubts. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change:
[...] no remaining scientific body of national or international standing is known to reject the basic findings of human influence on recent climate change.

Re:How do these people sleep at night.

[roman_mir]

Sharon Angle is something, ain't she? She's crazy.

However this here:

Eliminating the IRS (like, actually eliminating it, not just grumbling at tax time)

- everybody should want that.

AFAIC the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan started to steal money and redistribute that money to contractors - military and civilian alike. Politicians saw the SS money and needed to take it.

Why pay income taxes at all, if you against wars? That's first.

Then there is the entire issue of Freedom. The gov't is telling you: we own you. We own your wages and we'll give you what we decide out of the money you earn. That is unconstitutional and it is immoral.

Third: economy. Economy is suffering due to government taxing/regulating/subsidizing/creating moral hazards/creating monopolies and killing competition to small businesses/bailing out monopolies it creats.

Government is always spending, it is never shrinking and it spent even during the burst of the credit bubble in 2008. Government is printing and borrowing money, it never reduces its consumption, even though anybody as a person or a business (that is not subsidized) has to either find more income or reduce expenses during tough times. Government only spends, which gives a short boost, like an alcoholic drinking more after a binge because it's easier than to stop drinking and face the consequences. Government is the entity that takes in income taxes, prints and lends t-bills all the time - moves debt from one credit card to another, prints cash - dilutes value of everybody's dollars.

Government is the reason why prices always go up, prices skyrocket for everything, for the gov't subsidized through guaranteed mortgages houses, gov't subsidized health care prices went up thousands of times since Nixon fucked it up, gov't subsidized food industry and gov't fixing food prices caused obesity epidemic in US, UK and other places due to fructose used by companies to lower cost and to force people to buy and eat/drink more because they had to figure out a way to lower down costs instead of just having fluctuating prices all that while corn is subsidized. Government causes the tuition prices to go up by giving out loans on public money. Etc.etc., I can type all day long.

AFAIC nobody should want IRS to collect income taxes, it's immoral, it causes wars and steals money that people could use to invest into their own future, money they won't see again, it kills economy.

But of-course it's NOT JUST IRS, it's the Fed, it's gov't in economy in principle, it's ability of gov't to guarantee outcomes and thus providing reasons to corrupt gov't, and at the end that is what gov't is for - it wants to be corrupted because it has the power to help those, who corrupt it. It dangles that carrot and says: here here, rabbit, here, come and seduce me, come and corrupt me, I'll give you what you want - your monopoly, but you'll give me some of that money back.

Gov't in economy is the actual root cause of economy dying, it's more than IRS.

Re:How do these people sleep at night.

[roman_mir]

ha ha ha, it's the quickest and the easiest and the best way of making the most money (or taking the most resources), and it stays the best, the easiest and the quickest way forever.

A virus or a bacteria uses your body to survive, if they are not deadly, you survive and let them survive in you, that's one way to use you. Beating people up and taking their stuff is the quickest way of becoming much richer than the rest, around you, that's what governments are based on - they take your stuff that they didn't earn and they have authority and power over you and they live better than you, a clown like this one in the story is small potatoes compared to what a government does to you.

Killing you to take your resources is perfectly natural, the only question is this: is it smart? If you are dead the resources you produce can only be taken once. If you are kept alive because only a part of your resources you produced are taken from you, you'll continue being a useful source of said resources, that's why gov't doesn't kill you, and it's against a clown like this killing you - you are a natural resource for the gov't.

How does anybody like that sleep at night? With a big smile, on expensive sheets, on an expensive bed, in an expensive house with sla... assistants and cooks, and cleaners working around to keep all things up.

It actually is quite rewarding for some people, because they want everything and they are vane, so they literally do not care and they literally could kill you in cold blood (but not necessarily by their own pretty hand) if it became more profitable than letting you live. That's life.

Re:How do these people sleep at night.

[salesgeek]

The people who originally wrote the articles don't even benefit from it.

This is why copyright reform is necessary. It sums up the problem in the most concise way possible.

Re:How do these people sleep at night.

[Wildclaw]

* You are a sociopath/psychopath.
* You do it because "you have no other choice".
* You redefine worthwhile being to not include your victims. (usually via some kind of ideology/religion)
* You manage cognitive dissonance by using mental compartments. (and humans are very good at that)

Re:How do these people sleep at night.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah man it's almost as funny as those democrats up for re/election this year not mentioning they are democrats at all in there own election ads it's like they're afraid to be known as democrats for some weird reason. It's almost as funny as how they're using former President Clinton to do fund raising instead of the sitting democrat president with all his vacation I'm sure he could do some more fund raising or maybe the dems up for election want to put some distance between them and the "hope and change"

Re:How do these people sleep at night.

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

I like to think that what I do at my job benefits other people. How can someone work a job where they harass people into giving them money, and nothing they do could possibly help anyone but themselves.

It makes more sense if you approach it from the (legally justified) point of view that the Las Vegas Review-Journal is entitled to some compensation for the infringement of their copyright. Then it just becomes an outsourcing service. Righthaven is suing Angle in lieu of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, and has already compensated Las Vegas Review-Journal before damages (if any) are paid out.

Re:How do these people sleep at night.

[Anonymous Coward]

2) Pulling out of the UN. Since the UN wants to always extort money from the US for every project under the sun and constantly tries to weaken the sovereignty of the US, we'd be much better off if we pulled out. True, the rest of the world would lose their sugar daddy who pays for all of their programs, but that's the whole point of a countries government - to look out for their citizens, not the rest of the world.

Fuck you, too. Do you really believe the U.S.A (richest country in the world) pays too much?

2000-12-23 Turner Pays U.S. Dues; U.N. Budget Deal Goes Through,

http://www.betterworldcampaign.org/issues/funding/us-funding-for-the-un-an-overview.html.

When a private person (billionaire Ted Turner) has to cough up some millions to pay the USA's due because he would otherwise be ashamed of his country, what does this tell you about "the UN wants to always extort money from the US"? You've signed a treaty, abide by it!

  I hope the U.N. isn't there for you when you need it. I don't think there's ANY other country in the world where the UN is bashed so much as in the USA, which even has one of its headquarters.

Re:How do these people sleep at night.

[djmurdoch]

Of course the authors benefit from it: it enforces their copyright. A monopoly is a good thing to have.

Re:How do these people sleep at night.

[Anonymous Coward]

How about when she said that Social Security should be phased out? Face it, she's a nutcase.

Re:How do these people sleep at night.

[tepples]

End the ban on offshore drilling

Not until the FBI and others figure out exactly what checks and balances are needed to keep another disaster of the scale of Deepwater Horizon from happening again.

one thing that's always pissed me off is how Democrats get up and say "We need to stop relying on foreign oil!" and then at the same time support laws preventing us from using the oil on our own soil.

Perhaps by "foreign oil" the Dems are talking about petroleum in general, as opposed to renewables such as wind and solar. Once biochemists figure out how to scale up algae biodiesel and switchgrass ethanol production, the calm night won't be quite as much of a problem.

Re:How do these people sleep at night.

[shentino]

Then maybe the persons that sold the copyright should have done their homework and charged a higher price for a copyright with ripe damages.

Re:How do these people sleep at night.

[Anonymous Coward]

So, abortion is murdering babies, unless their fathers are assholes? Talk about moral relativity.

Re:How do these people sleep at night.

[Totenglocke]

No, they specifically mention "foreign oil". I'd be much more accepting if they said "oil" in general because then the two views (getting off oil and not supporting drilling for oil in the US) would match. Instead we have this huge hypocrisy that severely harms the US.

I'm all for getting off oil (not because I give a crap about the environment, I just want to see OPEC lose their power and then we'll stop sucking up to them and letting them literally get away with murder).

Not until the FBI and others figure out exactly what checks and balances are needed to keep another disaster of the scale of Deepwater Horizon from happening again.

Anything you do comes with risks. Should we stop nuclear power because there might be another bad meltdown? No. You take what precautions you can and move along and keep updating the precautions as you go.

Re:How do these people sleep at night.

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think they're sociopaths, they simply think protecting & compensating content creators is more important (and societally valuable) than using/reusing that content (outside of fair use anyway). They see content creators aren't willing to alienate their consumers by becoming litigious, so they buy the right to do it on their behalf.

I think they're really wrong, but the law seems to permit their line of thinking.

Re:How do these people sleep at night.

[interkin3tic]

I was indeed overstating the global warming issue (conspiracy is quite a bit kookier than thinking something is just wrong) and I did misread the quote on the IRS, which does state she wants to abolish the code and not the IRS itself. Those were both my fault.

To kind of hedge on that, I don't think there's much difference on the global warming issue. She's still ignoring scientific conclusions in favor of economics, presumably she would vote against restricting the amount of greenhouse gasses emitted or moving to cleaner technology. The page mentions she's a proponent of cheaper gas and more coal power.

So she's not crazy, but she is still in favor of screwing everyone over so various industries can make more money.

Abortion and pot regulation are frankly silly issues

Rape, incest, and unwanted pregnancies are not silly issues.

That Wikipedia article is actually pretty biased and most of the citations come from hit pieces in liberal newspapers on behalf of Harry Reid's campaign. The quotes from Las Vegas Sun are particularly laughable as the Sun is practically a part of Reid's campaign team and it's a "newspaper" with tiny circulation even though it's given away for free.

I have no idea how biased they are or aren't, but is anything on the wiki page -wrong-?

Re:How do these people sleep at night.

[interkin3tic]

We need better schools and incompetent bureaucrats in Washington are not the way to improve schools.

I don't think the bureaucrats at the state level are any less incompetent. Look at the textbooks Texas is writing.

Since the UN wants to always extort money from the US for every project under the sun and constantly tries to weaken the sovereignty of the US, we'd be much better off if we pulled out

After what we did to Iraq, I can't blame them. And it doesn't look like we're paying the "extortion."

Social Security does not work, hence why it's bankrupt.

Social security is bankrupt because politicians think we're too greedy to pay enough into it to support the elderly.

It's a -politically- complicated issue. The economics and morals of it, on the other hand, are extremely simple. We pay more into it and reduce the benefits, to keep the generations that raised us from dying in the streets.

I'm going to need some type of citation that it doesn't work and has never worked, because I'm pretty sure I've seen it work firsthand.

Sorry, but one thing that's always pissed me off is how Democrats get up and say "We need to stop relying on foreign oil!" and then at the same time support laws preventing us from using the oil on our own soil.

I don't get why we'd ruin ANWR forever for, what, a years worth of domestic oil.

Re:How do these people sleep at night.

[interkin3tic]

So, abortion is murdering babies, unless their fathers are assholes?

No. It's not murder and they're not babies.

Talk about moral relativity.

We live in the real world and are talking about government policies, so yes, we are talking about moral relativity.

Re:How do these people sleep at night.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sharon Angle is, not to put too fine a point on it... Bat-Shit Crazy. The fact that she has a chance to be elected scares the hell out of me. I am going to end up voting for that weasel Harry Reid ... To my utter horror. Last one left in Nevada turn off the lights.

Re:How do these people sleep at night.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a bit confused. How do these views differ significantly from typical republicanism?

Re:How do these people sleep at night.

[Bemopolis]

Call me back when you find a Republican politician begging the previous president to make a campaign appearance for him. Or hell, promising to bring back whole his brilliant ideas on economic and military policies.

Re:How do these people sleep at night.

[Anonymous Coward]

There used to be moderate republicans with sane and reasonable viewpoints. The tea party extremists are trying to remove them all from office and replace them with equally clueless extremists.

Re:How do these people sleep at night.

[fredmosby]

Sending them an email asking them to take down the infringing text would be enforcing copyright. Filing a lawsuit without warning and demanding thousands of dollars to settle out of court is extortion.

Re:How do these people sleep at night.

[Anonymous Coward]

The people who originally wrote the articles don't even benefit from it.

They already have, though quite indirectly. The copyright itself is more valuable to the employer than a mere license to publish, so the company can pay more for those rights while remaining profitable. Part of the reason for the rights being more valuable than a mere license is because of exactly this sort of option.

That being said, I still do fully support the notion that this sort of action is parasitic on society and should not be protected by a government-granted monopoly.

Re:How do these people sleep at night.

[Anonymous Coward]

There are also some "wonderful" qualifications for Sue Lowden, the Republican candidate who lost to Angle. Don't you think three-decades-old beauty contests are important!

Scientology connections

[Anonymous Coward]

Please mod this up...

Sharon Angle is (allegedly) involve with Scientology and she is getting racked over the coals because of it. Right now there is a microscope on her and this is very possibly one of those things someone noticed and busted her on it.

What else do you expect from a Scientologist tool?

[Anonymous Coward]

Too late to deny it.

That's it...

[Aeternitas827]

This whole goddam thing has gotten out of hand. The U.S. has become far too litigious--it's not even a matter of suing for stuff you made anymore; suing for something that someone else made (wrote, in this case), and being able to do so simply because you gave them a few bucks for the rights to it...just ridiculous.

Honestly, if there's anyone who really, truly believes--on their own, not because a few pushy groups with money to finance campaigns--that the current system is the way things should be, then this country has really gone tits-up. Are there ways that some of these abuses could be curbed? Sure, there are; but it should not be, by any stretch of the imagination, be necessary. There is no way anyone with a hand in copyright law before this generation would have wanted this type of bullshit.

To summarize, the extent of copyright should be to protect your work from other people making a profit off of it; if no one else is making money (DIRECTLY) off of it, then STFU, you're not losing anything you wouldn't have already not gotten already; if they are, then you get a) a nice injuction, and b) the sum total of what they made off of it (that you should have)...and maybe attorney's fees. And if you didn't make it, but you acquired the rights to it later, then STFU about anyone having used it before you had the rights; if the original owners didn't care, then you shouldn't either.

Re:That's it...

[Anonymous Cowpat]

suing for something that someone else made (wrote, in this case), and being able to do so simply because you gave them a few bucks for the rights to it...just ridiculous.

Can she force them to disclose how much they paid for it, then limit damages to how much it was worth when they paid for it. Surely, if complete rights to something are worth $X, the danmage caused by an unauthorized copy cannot possibly be greater than $X; in the same way that if you have 3 cars I can't steal 4 from you.

Re:That's it...

[flinkflonk]

You seem to have misunderstood the origins of copyright. It was never meant to give the creator compensation, what copyright was all about was censorship by control of distribution (therefore "copy", not "creation").

Just pointing out the obvious historicalities :)

Re:That's it...

[Viperpete]

The U.S. has become far too litigious

I used to agree with this, but have come to the following conclusion:

A citizenry that can and does rely on litigation as a first resort when they perceive themselves as wronged is less likely to rely on vigilante justice.

I think the real problem is a combination of greed and/or a false/misplaced sense of entitlement.

Like watching dumb and dumber

[syousef]

On the one hand why is the senator infringing copyright?
On the other hand why is anyone allowed to buy a copyright then sue without giving the infringer an opportunity to simply take down the infringing work?

Two wrongs make a right, dumb and dumber, disappearing up one's own back passage. Take your pick.

Copyright law is irreparably broken.

They are sociopaths

[Sycraft-fu]

They cannot empathize with others, they cannot feel the emotions of another. They are totally and completely self centered. So long as something is good for them, they do it.

Most people associate the term with serial killers and it is true, all serial killers I'm aware of are sociopaths, but there are actually a surprising amount of them. Nearly 10% of the population is like that. Most are just inconsiderate assholes, the sort of people that just don't seem to care when they cause problems for others.

That's what happens with people like this. They seem to have no morals because they don't. They'll act perfectly justified in their actions, After all, it is all within the law, why shouldn't they do this? You are stupid for not doing it! Etc, etc.

You will also find, that when someone does something to them the same as they do to others, they get PISSED. It is COMPLETELY different when done to them and they can't see the irony in that.

Happened to a spammer some years ago. He got interviewed by a local paper. He justified his spamming as being no big deal, people could just delete it, didn't cost them anything, etc, etc. What he did was 100% fine according to him. He also bragged on his new $800,000 house. Enterprising Slashdotters figured there couldn't have been many houses sold in that area at that price in the timescale talked about. They were right: There was one. As a result he was signed up for more or less every mailing list there was. A postal truck full of mail would show up every day.

He was livid, threatened to sue any and everyone, hissed, spitted and screamed about how big a problem this was. No recognition, at all, that this was just like what he did to others. In his mind inconveniencing other people was fine, but him being inconvenienced was a crime of epic proportions. Reason is he can only understand his own emotions and needs. Other people are just objects to him.

Re:They are sociopaths

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny story that - sociopath punished with his own method.

Got a link for the Slashdot article?

Re:They are sociopaths

[thijsh]

Excellent example. The question that now remains is: How do you deal with sociopaths? Is the only solution to force them to feel exactly like their victims? Your example seems to indicate there is no 'hey, maybe I did unto others...' moment for sociopaths, so will they ever truly learn from their mistakes? Hmmm, the cynic in me knows the answer is probably 'They will learn not to get caught next time'.

Re:They are sociopaths

[Aeternitas827]

Is the only solution to force them to feel exactly like their victims?

This would generally make them feel like a victim, and tend to escalation of their attacks; because to a degree, they will see it as being retaliation; for example, the person who runs around mugging people for months ends up mugged himself; from there on, he'll continue mugging people, but he'll debiliate them in one way or another--knocking them out from behind, breaking a few bones, possibly killing them (though this would require a quite robust catalyst)--to prevent retaliation.

Re:They are sociopaths

[Sycraft-fu]

The only real thing you can do is punish them for their actions. As I said, most of them aren't serial killers (obviously), they are just assholes. While they don't care about others, they are about themselves and most critters, including humans, are reasonably good at learning "If I do X, then Y happens."

So when they do things they shouldn't you punish them. This can mean legal punishment in the case they are breaking laws, or societal punishment in other cases. If you have a sociopath at work you may just have to fire them, but maybe not. If you crack down on them every time they are an asshole to someone, they may perfectly well be capable of being nice. They learn that it is either be nice, or get in trouble.

It also depends on the individual, of course. Like everything else people aren't all the same. There are degrees of the problem and so on.

However basically what it comes down to it you can't rely on moral/ethical arguments to work. You can't say "This hurts people you need to stop." It has to be a carrot/stick situation of "You do what you are supposed to, you get what you want, you don't, you get punished."

In the case of something like this? Well we probably need a change to the law. They've revealed a loophole that should be plugged. Change it so that purchasing copyright with the intent to sue is illegal, and maybe a provision that if you purchase it you have to give reasonable take down notice and so on.

Sometimes assholes just reveal a flaw that can be exploited in the system. The answer may not be to play whack-a-mole with the assholes, but rather to fix the hole. You could compare it to a security hole in a computer you run. Sure having the hacker that exploits it arrested (we'll presume this is possible) would work, and I'm not saying don't, but that it temporary till the next one comes along. The real solution is to fix the problem in the system. Then the assholes can't do anything.

Re:They are sociopaths

[a_claudiu]

I believe it's this article .

Re:They are sociopaths

[thijsh]

You make a good point, but the problem is some holes cannot be fixed (inherently)...

So that leaves conditioning as the only working treatment. But some things can't be punished by law currently (and neither should there be a law against anything and everthing).

But it's also possible to condition without punishment, but what kind of conditioning would work well on a sociopath?

Re:They are sociopaths

[xded]

Original slashdot story where the address was tracked down, archive copy of original article and follow-up slashdot story.

Re:They are sociopaths

[Sycraft-fu]

Depends on the sociopath. As I said, all people are different. Might be giving them what they want when they behave.

At work we've got a couple professors that I strongly suspect are sociopaths. They are just assholes and don't seem to care about anyone else. However they are generally nice and civil to us (computer support). Reason is they've found out being nice to us means that we fix your problems faster, and will help you more. If you are jerks to us you can find yourself rather low on the priority list and getting nothing but the minimum we are required to do.

Not saying this works in all cases, but then what in human interactions does? There is no "one-size-fits-all, completely permanent" solution to assholes.

Besides, not all assholes are necessarily sociopaths. Some might just be people who are really dense and not perceptive to others. They may not realize that they are being such jerks.

Re:They are sociopaths

[thijsh]

There is no "one-size-fits-all, completely permanent" solution to assholes.

Some extreme solutions prove the contrary. ;)

But yeah, I see your point. Different people, different solutions. But for a disorder to have truly different levels of effect you would expect there to be some kind of spectrum... In that case the asshole who doesn't realize he's a jerk could very well be a very mild case sociopath. It's about lack of empathy right? And there is of course a spectrum of empathy ranging from absolutely none (sociopath) to a huge fucking lot, with neither end allowing people to function properly.

Re:They are sociopaths

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it varies. I lean towards socipathy but it's something that varies greatly. It can yo yo in the extreme where sometimes I feel extreme empathy and sometimes everything switches off and I'm completely cold. For me, I think, my root cause was on-going violence in my childhood life whereas others may suffer a single large trauma or have a genetic disorder. It's likely these play important factors.

I have to be very careful of my temper because when I get angry I become cruel, violent, and without empathy. I feel no fear of punishment or guilt. Much more extreme, I think, than most people when they are angry. Often it's brought on by the need to protect myself or someone "under my protection" which can range from family members to strangers.

I'd say that once a sociopath gets a taste for a certain behavior they aren't going to stop. Like an addiction it's all about seeing the risk and not taking that path. Especially in cases of murder, rape, etc I think the only answer is a death sentence.

I do think it can be controlled if you can make the subject want to change it. This requires something to which the subject can identify with and form some sort of emotional bond with. A single bond can gradually be cultivated into a deeper set of emotions. This really needs to be done before the subject begins to act out on their needs.

I've really enjoyed the television show Dexter as, while not completely accurate, I think it does get a lot of things right. While emotions are difficult we can still find it important to adher to a code or set of morals. I think healthy exposure to emotions and an effort to emulate them can eventually lead to repairing some of the damage or maybe it's more like running an alternate path that achieves the same thing.

Re:They are sociopaths

[Anonymous Coward]

They are totally and completely self centered. So long as something is good for them, they do it.

So we need to make sure that things like this are bad for them, or impossible. If copyright law were less draconian, this wouldn't be a viable business model. Changing the law shouldn't be too hard - if they're sociopaths, they shouldn't be able to cooperate to oppose the changes, right?

Re:They are sociopaths

[tepples]

Change it so that purchasing copyright with the intent to sue is illegal

Would it also be a violation for a law firm to take an infringement case on a no win, no fee basis? Because in effect, there isn't much difference.

Re:They are sociopaths

[shentino]

Kinda like how spammers started harassing Blue Security users after getting a taste of their own medicine.

Re:They are sociopaths

[Krahar]

It becomes especially hard to distinguish the actual sociopaths because empathy is not automatic - if you want to, you can turn it off. If you don't at some point turn your empathy for starving people in the third world off, you won't be able to to function normally because obviously their issues are more grave than anything going on around you. So you turn it off. Soldiers aren't all sociopaths, yet they will seek opportunities to kill their enemies - they turn their empathy for their enemy off. What distinguishes the pure sociopath is that he can't turn empathy on, even if he wanted to, so there is nothing that will shock him into looking to his empathy. He does not have the option. So I think that there is a difference between perhaps having your empathy not come to you so naturally, and then to actually having none.

Re:They are sociopaths

[Fnord666]

Is the only solution to force them to feel exactly like their victims?

No, the solution would be to diagnose them correctly and treat them accordingly. The current DSM-IV term is Antisocial Personality Disorder. Unfortunately the prognosis does not seem to be good. On the other hand it seems that many people suffering from this mental illness end up incarcerated, so maybe there is hope in this case.

Your example seems to indicate there is no 'hey, maybe I did unto others...' moment for sociopaths, so will they ever truly learn from their mistakes?

Antisocial Personality Disorder is deeply seated in the individual's psyche and is unlikely to react positively to such an experience.

Re:Really Slashdot? Really?!

[amiga3D]

Well really if someone sued Obama that's obviously completely different. Obama is a democrat, you can't go around suing democrats.

Re:Really Slashdot? Really?!

[Black Parrot]

So because a copyright troll sued a conservative it is somehow benign or OK?

25 posts so far. Looks like most of them are saying it's *not* OK. A few bring up what a nutcake Angle is, but don't say anything about that making the lawsuit good.

Re:Really Slashdot? Really?!

[clarkkent09]

So because a copyright troll sued a conservative it is somehow benign or OK?

Nobody actually said that except you. Btw, Righthaven sued plenty of left wing sites too. They are apparently averaging several lawsuits per day so I don't really think there is a political agenda here.

Re:Really Slashdot? Really?!

[The Iso]

I am the submitter of this story. I am a registered Libertarian and much more sympathetic to Sharron Angle than to Barack Obama.

You want links ... LMGTFY ...

[rdebath]

http://www.righthavenlawsuits.com/

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010/sep/03/sharron-angle-hit-r-j-copyright-lawsuit/

Re:You want links ... LMGTFY ...

[Runaway1956]

A lot more people need to leave comments. Mine: "Copyright troll is copyright troll, no matter his rationalizations"

Copyright is a big player in this Senate race...

[Anonymous Coward]

Wasn't Sharron Angle the one who sent Harry Reid a c&d for mirroring an old version of Angle's website? A version that showed Angle to be quite a radical candidate in the Republican primary?

Re:-ENOPARSE

[The Iso]

Unfounded libel much?

Actually, TFA says that it's their business model. You can read about it in Wired: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/07/copyright-trolling-for-dollars/

Re:Really Slashdot? Really?!

[interkin3tic]

So because a copyright troll sued a conservative it is somehow benign or OK?

Don't malign conservatives like that and don't malign slashdotters like that either. This woman is not conservative. She says she is, but a more precise classification would be "delusional." And those slashdotters like myself who find this a little amusing aren't saying it's okay, this is still a symptom of an incredibly broken copyright system and overly litigious society. Still, it sure as shit ain't sad when slightly bad things happen to dangerous politicians. She's going to a fraction of her warchest to this. If Fox news picks this up, it will probably be spun as a conspiracy to keep it down, will rally her supporters, and she'll come out ahead.

Extinctio per absurdum

[srussia]

Sure, abolishing both would be best, but for now, hopefully criminalizing profiteering with copyrights and patents should stop at least some of the abuse.

I say let all the absurdities play out until things us so untenable that both patent and copyright get repealed.

Phone Booth

[w00tsauce]

Steve Gibson needs to walk into a phone booth.

lame, lamer, american

[Anonymous Coward]

just waw....how pathetic can you be as a company/person. I guess only in America...

That is, unfortunately, a problem with Wikipedia

[Sycraft-fu]

While they are generally good about demanding sources (though I've seen some very unsourced articles) there is no checking on the quality of sources. Now that in and of itself isn't a massive problem since of course sources are listed, and readers can check them for themselves. The problem is that a lot of people these days take Wikipedia to be The Truth(tm). If it says it on Wikipedia, it must be right. It is their first and last source for info. Whatever it says, goes.

My coworkers and I have joked about how we could create a link circle to make something "true" using Wikipedia. Create a website or two with some info, link to them from a blog. Create a little circle of blogs (or use existing ones) that link to each other and to the sites, use some of those to source a Wikipedia article. Once that is up, have some of the other blogs link back to it. Create a nice little circle so that on first view, the fluff "copy-paste" job that blogs like so much all has a source. Wikipedia is happy as there are citations, and so on. Then cite the Wikipedia article where you want to use it to prove your point.

Sure, it would all fall apart under analysis, people would realize that nothing ever links to a credible primary source, but people don't do that usually. Wikipedia is right, and the article wouldn't be resilient to take downs and changes because it would be well sourced.

Don't get me wrong, I like Wikipedia, but it isn't always a good source for information. For technical info, it tends to be the best. This is in part because a lot of geeks take part in it, so there are more experts, and in part because there is little controversy. However the more controversial something is, the more current events it is, and for sure the more political it is the worse the quality tends to be. The group that controls the page (meaning is winning the edit war) determines the nature of the presentation.

So remember: If you want to do a good job citing, don't cite Wikipedia, cite the sources. Use it to find primary sources, and cite those. That is how proper citations are done in academics anyhow. You don't cite a paper that talks about another paper (unless you are specifically talking about the analysis they are doing) you go and get the original paper and cite that.

Odd reasoning

[zoomshorts]

From the article, "Righthaven tracks Internet traffic for copyright infringements of Review-Journal stories. It then buys the copyright for a story from the newspaper's owner, Stephens Media LLC, and sues the alleged infringer."

IF the article is correct ,Review-Journal seems to be the entity that should be suing.
Righthaven did not have the rights at the time of the infringement. They purchased the rights after the fact.

Of course, it's not like Angle is innocent... She

[SunSpot505]

got the race litigating early on when she tried to sue Harry Reid's campaign for re-posting her old website after she had changed it substantially. The situation of the purchase of articles followed by litigation is certainly some dirty business, but I just can't help but think that perhaps this is a little comeuppance??

Let me get this straight ....

[thephydes]

I use an article, you buy it, then you sue me for using it before you owned it? Sorry I do not understand - the system that allows this is seriously fucked!

Re:Let me get this straight ....

[heathen_01]

1. You use an article illegally
2. The value of the copyright is increased
3. The copyright holder sells the now valuable copyright to someone with the expertise to extract the value
4. Profit

Why would you want to prevent selling something you own to another party who considers it to be more valuable? Is this not the basis for all trade?

Re:Let me get this straight ....

[Dr. Sp0ng]

Is this not the basis for all trade?

What is? Government-mandated scarcity? No. Copyrights and patents (but not trademarks) are fundamentally anti-market constructs.

LVRJ

[Anonymous Coward]

Sharron Angle is lawsuit #117. Look at the Las Vegas Sun's website for months worth of coverage on this lawsuit issue. I'm too lzy to login to /. so I'm certainly not getting links for you. Anyway, they've sued everyone from bike clubs to 'crazy cat ladies'. They, Righthaven, go into court asking for 75k AND transfer of the offenders domain name to them. They skirt the DMCA takedowns. The Sun published an article a few weeks ago stating Righthaven sued a website that posted 2 sentences from an LVRJ article. The forum post attibuted the LVRJ and had a link to the original article. The LVRJ doesn't care. No linking, no fair use, nobody is allowed to do anything related to the LVRJ. The big downside for me is that the Sun is wrapped up and delivered inside the LVRJ. I can't get the Sun with out it. Hey! LVRJ, if you're that concerned about IP theft take you POS RAG off the internet!!!

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/

this is all OK

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not crazy at all. Las Vegas Review-Journal have received payment for their intellectual work without having the trouble of searching for infringers or go to court. This money allows for their living costs, thereby allowing them to continue producing intellectual property of value.

Meanwhile the infringers, who have allegedly attempted to get something for nothing, like so many on here believe is their entitlement, will have their day in court.

Capitalism has its extraneous workloads (in this case, finding infringers and prosecuting them) and under capitalism, the workload can go to the lowest bidder. Unlike socialism where it just grows exponentially until it eclipses the productive economy.

Re:this is all OK

[Anonymous Coward]

+1 funny

Blame...?!

[Type44Q]

I have to question how the plaintiff can show they received damages in good faith when they willfully purchased a copyright because it was being violated (i.e. isn't there a basic requirement or presumption of "innocence" or lack of participation on the part of the plaintiff?

An image comes to mind of an old lady erratically weaving down the road at 7mph in her Buick Roadmaster and I deliberately run out in front of her (I know, inaccurate analogy)...

Re:Blame...?!

[shermo]

No, it's like you paying someone who got hit by the buick for the right to sue the old lady. You're effectively providing a hedge for the person who needs money and will accept a lower expected return in return for certainty.

There's nothing wrong with it in principle. I suspect it's just that you dislike copyrights so this is somehow 'tainted'.

Re:Blame...?!

[Type44Q]

There's nothing wrong with it in principle.

Well, in that case I guess I and everyone else who are horrified on principle by this sort of thing - and the slippery slope it portends - should just shut up and move on. :P

Re:Blame...?!

[Anonymous Coward]

What, that you're able to use financial methods to hedge your risk in certain situations? (What is so slippery slopeish about that?) In order to be consistent in that view, you'd better be horrified by insurance too.

Sure, be horrified by copyright law, but don't be about people making sensible financial decisions.

AC because I can't be bothered logging in at home.

Some math here...

[ZDRuX]

According to http://www.righthavenlawsuits.com/ - they have filed 117 similiar suits in the past, recovering a total of $104,000. Doing some hardcore math, it comes out to being awarded about $888 in damages per suit.

Is this really what this is about? Going to court so you can pay off 2 months worth of cellphone and ISP bills? ...pathetic.

Copyright and provenance

[tepples]

With copyright at least you can clearly see that someone copied your work.

Not necessarily. True, copyright is the only intangible property right among the big three that requires access to the plaintiff's work as part of a claim of infringement. But if I hear a song on the radio, and then a decade later, I write a similar song, then I have infringed the copyright. George Harrison got nailed for "My Sweet Lord".

Competition law

[tepples]

A monopoly is a good thing to have.

The U.S. Congress disagreed with you when it passed the Sherman Act and Clayton Act. Monopolies such as copyright and patent are necessary evils if anything.

Re:Relevant outside USA?

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck Off

You can submit a story about Lower Elbonia if you want. And you don't have to read this one.

What goes around comes around....

[pridkett]

There's some deep irony here. After the Nevada primary Angle changed her website to make her seem more consistent with the mainstream values of the Republican party. The Reid campaign, sensing an opportunity, archived her old website and put it online at http://www.therealsharronangle.com/ This, of course, really irked the Angle campaign who attempted to use copyright law against the Nevada state Democratic party to squash the publication of the site.

RIghthaven better watch out

[Anonymous Coward]

Righthaven better watch out - ol' Obtuse Angle might just sic some of her teabagger army on them with "2nd Amendment remedies".

Re:The more the better -- Vegas Bet

[redelm]

A very good point. The real question is what means of enforcement are available for unsavory legislative vote agreements. "Campaign contributors" and other legislators have on-going relationships and can inflict reputational damage with others.

What lever does an aggressive litigant have? Only the suit. They cannot enforce any secret settlment, so have to keep the suit alive as a threat. However, legislators are more devious than that -- they can work with others (vote swapping) against their own vote.

But that may not even be necessary if she has the least modicum of courage -- just wear a wire. The first hint of vote-buying and those guys go to the bighouse for a long time. No settlement privilige for felonies. She'd have full backing of Congress, the FBI & USSS.

Troll?

[canajin56]

I suppose this makes the FSF a copyright troll. They ask that people releasing under the GPL transfer all copyrights to the FSF so that they can sue to enforce the GPL. If having an agreement with a with another organization where, when your rights are infringed, you transfer the copyright to them so they can sue, instead of you, makes you a troll, then the FSF is a major-league copyright troll.

How to protect yourself from Righthaven

[Sam_In_The_Hills]

At least according to this web site: Before It's News

"We've been wondering how they can get away with that legally and it turns out an obscure section of the DMCA concerning the "safe harbor" noticing proceeders requires that in order for a website to qualify for "safe harbor" and thus require a copyright complainant to first give the webmaster notice and time to take down the material before suing them, requires (amongst other things) that each website register their contact information with the United States Copyright office.."

Two-thirds foreign

[tepples]

I'd be much more accepting if they said "oil" in general

"Foreign oil" refers to the two-thirds of oil used in the United States that it imports. If the United States were to replace two-thirds of its petroleum power with renewable power, it won't need to import petroleum anymore.

Not until the FBI and others figure out exactly what checks and balances are needed to keep another disaster of the scale of Deepwater Horizon from happening again.

You take what precautions you can and move along and keep updating the precautions as you go.

What I was trying to say was that this updating can begin now that BP has retrieved the broken blowout preventer from DWH. Once the DWH disaster is well understood, there might be more support for drilling.

Righthaven/Stephens Media

[brianerst]

The Righthaven/Stephens Media copyright trolling was covered by a lot of the conservative blogosphere a few weeks ago. Righthaven (the trolls) has a deal for all of Stephen Media's 70-odd newpaper properties (including the Las Vegas Review-Journal). Wired had a story about their business plan.

A trademark lawyer blogged about why their business plan isn't a good one (hint: most bloggers don't have deep pockets).

Finally, Clayton Cramer posted a blacklist plus some links to BlockSite and SiteBlock to block all Stephens Media properties from Firefox/Chrome.

It was a bit of a cause célèbre for about a week, but I'm sure this will kick it up again...

Who Owns Righthaven?

[Anonymous Coward]

From their website (http://www.righthavenlawsuits.com/):
"Righthaven LLC is owned 50/50 by two limited liability companies. The first is Net Sortie Systems, LLC, which is owned by Las Vegas attorney Steven Gibson – the Nevada attorney who is behind all of the lawsuits filed by Righthaven. The second is SI Content Monitor LLC, which is owned by family members of investment banking billionaire Warren Stephens whose investments include Stephens Media, LLC which owns the Las Vegas Review-Journal."

Re:handbags wholesale

[Sulphur]

Mod parent up.

Clever reference to copyright.

Support Sharon Angle; Harry Reid would not be seen with a handbag. Q.E.D.

the sad thing is...

[Anonymous Coward]

Im almost....almost...rooting for righthaven. Maybe now the senators will see how crazy this is and what we've been dealing with

Re:Really Slashdot? Really?!

[amiga3D]

Yes...I know. The truth hurts. No one likes to admit there isn't a single unbiased source of news anymore. I think I quit taking network news seriously when Cronkite retired. It's been spin city ever since. Now the conservatives badmouth the mainstream media and liberals badmouth Fox and talk radio. Funny thing is they are both usually correct. They never see the bias on their side though. If you point it out you're a troll. Ah well....I generally feel good about myself when both sides think I agree with the other side. Liberals think I'm conservative and conservatives think I'm liberal. Frankly I don't give a rats ass. A plague on both their houses.

Re:Really Slashdot? Really?!

[amiga3D]

She's probably getting elected even though she's an idiot. That's okay though...someone has to take Pelosi's place as the biggest airhead in congress. The House that is. Their are several competitors in the Senate. And then there is Biden. Man...every time I watch C-Span I'm amazed that with the nutty leadership we have this country still survives.

Not a copyright troll ..

[roguegramma]

In my book, this isn't about a copyright troll, more about a copyright factory.

Trolling means to do something wrong in an excessive way.
However, even the capacity of the internet to copy doesn't mean that it is ok to copy an article word by word.

Copyright is the foundation of things like copyleft licenses.
The only thing excessive with copyright is the asking for longer and longer durations.

Re:Not a copyright troll ..

[robsku]

A factory does not buy things to sell, a factory produces things to sell. This is exactly the same thing patent trolls do but with copyrights instead - if they would have actually created the article then it would be different but they just bought it ONLY because someone had copied it so they could sue. You got to have a pretty twisted mind in this case to not see it as trolling, in my book at least.

Re:Really Slashdot? Really?!

[MJMullinII]

She's probably getting elected even though she's an idiot. That's okay though...someone has to take Pelosi's place as the biggest airhead in congress. The House that is. Their are several competitors in the Senate. And then there is Biden. Man...every time I watch C-Span I'm amazed that with the nutty leadership we have this country still survives.

I lived through eight years of George W. Bush, you'll live through eight of Barack H. Obama.

Re:Really Slashdot? Really?!

[MJMullinII]

Yes...I know. The truth hurts. No one likes to admit there isn't a single unbiased source of news anymore. I think I quit taking network news seriously when Cronkite retired. It's been spin city ever since. Now the conservatives badmouth the mainstream media and liberals badmouth Fox and talk radio. Funny thing is they are both usually correct. They never see the bias on their side though. If you point it out you're a troll. Ah well....I generally feel good about myself when both sides think I agree with the other side. Liberals think I'm conservative and conservatives think I'm liberal. Frankly I don't give a rats ass. A plague on both their houses.

What's this bullshit about "mainstream media" and then mentioning Fox News, as though they two completely separate things.

Want to know what the "mainstream media" is? It's any news source that makes a living out of telling the news in such a way to guarantee the largest possible audience for said news outlet.

Audience equal ratings and ratings equal money.

I've got news for you, Fox News IS the "mainstream media".

Re:Really Slashdot? Really?!

[amiga3D]

Well maybe they are mainstream if you're going by market share. It's a term they use for "everybody" else. Just think of it as a convenient way to differentiate between Fox and the other network news organizations. It's not like it's an important distinction.

Re:Really Slashdot? Really?!

[MJMullinII]

Well maybe they are mainstream if you're going by market share. It's a term they use for "everybody" else. Just think of it as a convenient way to differentiate between Fox and the other network news organizations. It's not like it's an important distinction.

Alright...that I would agree with...just so long as we all know that "mainstream" is just a marketing ploy used by Fox News to attempt to increase their ratings.
To make it clear, I'm not saying there's even anything wrong with Fox News...I simply don't see how they are any different than MSNBC (just in the opposite direction).