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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."
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.
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.
Meus subcriptio est nocens Latin quoniam bardus populus reputo is sanus callidus
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?
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.
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.
The party of trial lawyers isn't going to change without some feedback.
For in politics, as in religion, it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword. - Publius
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.
That Anonymous Coward guy is pretty annoying. Can we have the government censor him or something?
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.
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.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
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.
I don't post AC. I like my -1, Flamebaits. Trump/Sheen 2012 on the Batshit Insane ticket!
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.
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.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
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.
http://www.righthavenlawsuits.com/
http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010/sep/03/sharron-angle-hit-r-j-copyright-lawsuit/
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/
"You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows." - Bob Dylan
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.
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.
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.
My Slashdot account is old enough to drink...