Righthaven To Explain Why Reposting Isn't Fair Use

Ponca City, We love you writes "TechDirt reports that a judge has asked Righthaven to explain why a non-profit organization reposting an entire article isn't fair use. The case involves the Center for Intercultural Organizing of Portland, Oregon, which was sued by Righthaven in August after an entire 33-paragraph Review-Journal story about Las Vegas immigrants was posted on the center's website, crediting the Review-Journal. The nonprofit says it was founded by Portland-area immigrants and refugees to combat widespread anti-Muslim sentiment after 9/11 and it works to strengthen immigrant and refugee communities through education, civic engagement, organizing and mobilization and does not charge subscription fees or derive any income from its website. The interesting thing is that the defendant in this case didn't even raise the fair use issue. It was the judge who brought it up, suggesting that the Nevada judges are being inundated with hundreds of Righthaven cases, and that Righthaven has already lost once in a case that was found to be fair use so judges may want to set a precedent to clear their dockets."

Comments

WTF is Righthaven

[slodan]

If you are like me, you thought, "What the fuck is Righthaven?"

Righthaven LLC [is] the Las Vegas “technology company” that has been filing copyright infringement lawsuits in ... Nevada against numerous unsuspecting website owners (almost always without notice) for copyright infringement of news articles originally published in the Las Vegas Review Journal.

Via http://www.righthavenlawsuits.com/.

Re:"Because we say so"

[paiute]

Previous poster is correct. It is not fair use, and Righthaven will win. The judge will award them all of the non-profit's profits for the next year.

Re:"Because we say so"

[morgan_greywolf]

While usually you'd be right, there are instances where reposting an entire article is considered fair use. For example, if the use of the article is non-commercial and does not hurt the commercial value of the original, that's basically fair use.

Understand that fair use is not a law;it's an affirmative defense in a copyright violation case. Therefore, there are few specifics as to what does and does not constitute fair use; whether a specific case is fair use depends entirely on the facts and circumstances of the case.

Re:"Because we say so"

[uniquename72]

if the use of the article is non-commercial and does not hurt the commercial value of the original, that's basically fair use.

No, it's not. At all. See http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html. Whether or not the original document is being used for commercial purposes is only 1/4 of the things evaluated when deciding fair use.

Re:"Because we say so"

[Anonymous Coward]

And I would say the advertising revenue is of no concern whatsoever in this case, since the party losing the ad revenue is the newspaper, but... (wait for it...) they aren't the ones suing.
Righthaven takes copyright of an article, and licenses it back to the newspaper. At that point, the economic value of the article to Righthaven is exhausted. There is no further "ad revenue" coming in to them.
Now, they could possibly resell the article to other newspapers, but they aren't, because that isn't their business model. Their entire business model is making money by suing "infringers". In this case, the economic value to Righthaven is INCREASED by someone else posting it in its entirety.

This is nothing but the newspaper equivalent of the MPAA/RIAA lawsuits, where you smack someone for infringement, extort them for a settlement because they can't afford to defend themselves in court, then move on to the next person. One of their lawsuits has already been dismissed and found to be baseless, how many settlements have been made on similar cases, that might have been thrown out had the defendants had the money to fight in court?

Re:This is black letter law

[Attila Dimedici]

Ordinarily, I would agree with you. However, Righthaven is a company that exists for the sole purpose of filing copyright lawsuits against anyone who uses any part of an article published by the Las Vegas Review Journal. Righthaven does not publish anything. As far as I can tell, they don't even sell the rights to publish anything. What you miss is that since the organization being sued is a non-profit, Righthaven must show how their publishing of the article reduces Righthaven's ability to make money from the article. Since Righthaven doesn't make money from the article (except from copyright infringement lawsuits), this will be a hard sell in court.

Re:"Because we say so"

[tverbeek]

For example, if the use of the article is non-commercial and does not hurt the commercial value of the original, that's basically fair use.
Understand that fair use is not a law;it's an affirmative defense in a copyright violation case. Therefore, there are few specifics as to what does and does not constitute fair use; whether a specific case is fair use depends entirely on the facts and circumstances of the case.

Saying that "fair use is not a law" is a strange statement, since it is codified in the Copyright Act of 1976. It spells out a four-part test, which includes "the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole", which this example flunks pretty badly.