Slashdot Mirror
Righthaven Sues For Control of Drudge Report Domain
Hugh Pickens writes "The Las Vegas Review Journal reports that in its latest case, Righthaven is seeking relief from copyright infringement by the Drudge Report website and by the Drudge Archives website, and is asking for a preliminary and permanent injunction against infringement on a photo copyright, control of the Drudge Report website and statutory damages up to $150,000. In a lawsuit filed Wednesday, Righthaven complains about the use of a Denver Post photograph of a Transportation Security Administration agent patting down an airline passenger. Drudge displayed an unauthorized reproduction of the photo on the Drudge Report website on Nov. 18, according to the civil complaint. Shawn Mangano, the attorney who filed the lawsuit on Righthaven's behalf, says it is the first time Righthaven has sued over use of a copyrighted illustration. Righthaven also takes issue with the fact that the Drudge Report has no DMCA takedown regime to respond to those who allege violations of copyright. 'I assume it's going to be very seriously litigated,' says Mangano, noting that Drudge has substantial financial resources."
We've discussed previous attempts by Righthaven to turn a quick buck on news-related copyright.
Do they really think transferring the domain into their control is even remotely likely? It's one thing when you're talking about a torrent tracker where an injunction alone is unlikely to prevent future infringement. But if the court tells Matt Drudge to take down that photo, I'm pretty sure he'll take it down (once his appeals are exhausted).
Maybe two wrongs DO make a right!
Smart of them to pick on Drudge. Deep pockets, widely despised.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
The only thing scarier than a copyright infrigement troll is Drudge Report's army of angry commentators.
I'll admit I don't know anything about Righthaven, had to look them up, but I'm wondering why they would ask for (or have any hope of getting) control of the web site? The statutory damages and removal of infringing content I can understand, but why would they possibly get control over something due to copyright infringement, especially for content they don't own? Are they filing at the request of the News Media Group?
Most people would die sooner than think; in fact, they do.
While I think that Righthaven(nice doublethink name right there) is just a huge troll and doesn't deserve a cent, it's possible they have a leg to stand on legally here. Images in the news industry have a precedent of being licensed so if one that was owned by Righthaven was used without authorization by the Drudge Report then that's different from their attempting to claim that they "owned" a news story.
If copyright infringement is "theft," this is highway robbery committed by a biker gang armed with uzis against a bus full of nuns all under the sanction of the local warlord.
Great Intellect...
...thereby bankrupting both and teaching us all a very important lesson. Never try.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Using copyrighted images to illustrate news stories is generally considered fair use...
ctrl+f "DMCA" in that article doesn't find anything. Has this Righthaven organization heard of the DMCA, and the provisions it provides for relief from copyright infringement? Seems like a textbook case for a DMCA takedown notice. IANAL, but I imagine a judge will take one look at this and say "did you even TRY to work something out with the infringing party before litigating?"
I wonder if the Drudge report just linked to the image. If so, that should definitely be legal.
The HTML spec and or http spec should make it clear (are they even licensed?)
that it is always de-facto legal to create a link (anywhere) to content that has been
published and is publicly accessible on the world wide web,
so long as the content is legal to view.
i.e. re-linking to child porn could still be illegal, as it is collaborating in the crime, but
everything else is legal.
Those that wish to restrict access to their content can use some other technical measure
such as requiring a user login. Such content is by definition not on the public world wide
web, so the right does not apply.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
I have a feeling the next Operation Payback target may be selecting itself if Wikileaks isn't stealing too much of the spotlight...
In most statutes, it's legally dangerous to even point a gun at a team of thieves who've parked a van in front of your house and who are systematically robbing you. Someone "steals" a picture that is probably worth a few hundred dollars and has no real value apart from the original story... $150k in possible statutory damages.
This isn't a sign that we're sophisticated or advanced as a society. It says we're a bloody banana republic where the common man has no legally sure way to defend what is his, but some photographer or corporation can try to ruin your business over what should be a minor infraction (that they too often commit, just look at how often major bloggers are copied by big media outlets).
Drudge's page is mostly a directory of links with the occasional thumbnail picture. Google already won a case in which it was decided that thumbnail images in connection with a directory of links was a transformative use, and thus was considered fair use. Drudge is driving traffic to the newspaper that published the image, just as Google does.
Drudge is going to win this, if Righthaven even litigates it, which is unlikely.
No, they posted the photograph with their story as an "illustration".
Neither IETF nor W3C have any authority to dictate what is legal and what is not legal.
"Neither IETF nor W3C have any authority to dictate what is legal and what is not legal."
No but they could give authoritative guidance to the courts about what the assumed
intent is when one is publishing content on a publicly accessible portion of the world wide web.
They can state that there exists a legal entity called the "World Wide Web",
whose incarnation is the sum total of content accessible directly or indirectly
by hyperlinks which have themselves been made publicly known by the publisher.
They could state that the World Wide Web entity relies for its existence on the right for
people and software web client programs to freely traverse the web, freely view and process
the content, and freely link in new pages to the content that constitutes the World Wide Web.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
http://www.google.com/images?q=Denver+Post+photograph+of+a+Transportation+Security+Administration+agent+patting+down+an+airline+passenger&biw=1449&bih=69 ?
Now that the conservatives at slashdot (those who hadn't already heard of your plight) are aware of the situation you can rest easy knowing that they've got your back. If you ask nicely Taco may even send some of his TownHall.com ad revenue your way to help with your legal bills.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
...nobody fighting. He also don't like it when you stand up for yourself neither.
Who is under the sanction of the warlord? The bikers? Or the nuns?
...except that no judge would allow that particular argument unless he was a complete tosser who had never worked in, around, or with a business in his life.
;-P) associated with the name "The Drudge Report"--and as such, any judge or lawyer who has the word "competent" in his dictionary would immediately shoot down the "it's only $30" argument--any lawyer suggesting that wouldn't even be able to finish the statement before the objection would happen.
The whole reason for copyrighting company names, the whole reason for brand names on websites and on products--hell, the entire justification for the concept of a 'trademark'--is summed up in a line-item in corporate accounts: Goodwill.
Goodwill is an attempt by the beancounters to make tangible the company's reputation--the name brand recognition, the associations made by the customers with it, and everything associated with that.
The Drudge Report has -significant- goodwill (though not all of it is good
So no, there is no 'beauty' to this demand. It's stupid. It's demanding a significant chunk of the goodwill and trademark recognition of the alleged infringer for a minor alleged act of infringement. It is -vastly- out of proportion to the alleged offense.
(And, IMHO, Righthaven and all other IP-trolling companies really ought to be denied the ability to litigate, being as they have, technically, no direct interest in the IP in question.)
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree
To be accurate / jokingly pedantic, the TSA agent is "feeling up", and not "patting down" the prospective airline passenger.
DMCA takedown notifications are handled by ISPs. Website operators don't have to do anything special to accommodate them. It doesn't look like Brightcove's lawyers are very bright. Must be the inbreeding.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
I've always been confused about how meta news isn't news itself and therefore constitutionally protected. If the denver post (or the AP) posts a picture, and someone republishes that picture as 'news' because they reported it, how is that not journalism in itself. Is all copyrighted material off limits as 'news'? (headline, 'the denver post published this picture today claiming that ... '
My gut would tell me, although I'm not a lawyer, that since reproduction for educational purposes is 'fair use' (which isn't constitutionally protected), shouldn't journalism be similarly protected as fair use?
Shawn Mangano, the attorney who filed the lawsuit on Righthaven's behalf, says it is the first time Righthaven has sued over use of a copyrighted illustration.
He then added, "So, immediately taking complete administrative, editorial, and publishing control of a website IS the right amount of punishment to expect for unauthorized use of one single image, right? I mean, we ARE new at this, we don't want to look like overreacting jackasses who don't know what we're talking about. That'd just be embarrassing!"
Actually, I take that back. Given what the MPAA/RIAA seem to want, that seems light of a punishment.
Demanding constant attention will only lead to attention.
It's time for LVRJ to get what they've asked for: to be left alone. Completely. Utterly. Don't mention them, don't link to them, don't discuss them, don't acknowledge that they exist. Let that be the last $150,000 of income they ever collect. If they don't want publicity, respect their wishes and let them die off in a corner by themselves.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Drudge makes money, and these charlatans want to be paid. I'm sure they are trolling for a cheap settlement.
If Drudge fights this (and he will, he's in the free speech business) this one shouldn't last very long, first off, even if he used a photo, it's covered by fair use, and secondly, is Righthaven the copyright owner? If they aren't, they have no standing.
These righthaven lawyers need to be disbarred. They are the Jack Thompson of insane IP barratry.
Corporatism != Free Market
No, they can't provide authoritative guidance to courts on presumed intent.
Presumed intent, where that matters in a legal case, a question on which some of the content of standards documents might in some cases have some persuasive weight, they certainly would not be "authoritative" on the question of presumed intent.
If you want to change the law, you need to deal with the entities empowered to make and change laws.
They can state anything they want, but legal entities are either natural persons or creatures of law (e.g., juridical entities like nations, subordinate government entities, and corporations chartered by nations or subordinate government entities.)
Statements by standards bodies are not the mechanisms by which actual legal entities are created.
Alternately, what they could have done is something like this:
Patent some critical component of HTTP
Write a small bit of code that implements that patent
License that bit of code under a license that is like the GPL3, but with an additional clause stating that by using this code, you agree that anyone can link to any content made publicly available
Problem is, then nobody would've adopted HTTP.
For acting in such an obviously cartooney evil way. But next time, instead of just demanding control of a well-known blog over one lousy picture, and thus starkly outlining the dangers of copyright w.r.t. the First Amendment, could you work in a lawsuit against an 8-year old or something?
Seriously, of course Drudge wouldn't have a DMCA process; it's not applicable in cases where the publisher is exercising editorial control over the contents.
IANALBIPOOTI I Am Not A Lawyer But I Play One On The Internet
I think there's a good argument that:
1. The WWW is supra-national.
2. Its defining technical standards (adherence to them), and common conventional use
of those standards in the contrstruction of and participation in the world wide web
constitute the basis of a global-in-scope COMMON LAW that should be given serious
weight in adjudications of such matters by lower (narrower than global in scope) courts.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
In this case the winners will be the lesser of the evils involved, the lawyers.
With the best result being Rightshaven's lawyer taking this case on contingency and not getting paid either.
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
Ouch. I went down the list of clients and did a little check on a popular forum I'm an owner and admin for the past few years. At least three instances of pasted text from one article or another using the forum search software. None on Google. However, this community-minded recreational board (and no commercial activity including ads) has zero interest in infringing on copyright and occasional posts some off-topic thing because they're bored. But, their off-topic banter now puts me and their community at risk. Yikes! And $105 is a serious amount for me as well as I'm not eager to put willingly put my real name, phone number, and addres in yet another database searchable online. And the three tasks are a true PITA that could take 5-10 hours to do including searching and removing any existing content on the 200 or so affiliate website URL, to program the forum to block them in the future, and future mainteance. And if I block, I guarantee I'll become a bad guy "censoring" them because they don't know copyright law enough to make a distinction between a hyperlink (which I thought was still OK) and pasting something from their website (which can be OK if it's Fair Use). Decisions, decisions, decisions.... . . Never mind! I just Google Molotov Cocktail and feel much better.
There may be such an argument, but you haven't made it, and it seems to be pretty unlikely that such an argument would succeed in US courts. Starting with the fact that US courts don't recognize any kind of supra-national "common law" to start with. There is some recognition of "customary international law" as itself being available in U.S. courts which derives from the common law (which is not itself supra-national), but for something to be "customary international law" it must both be in general practice and generally accepted in the international community as law. This is clearly not the case of IETF and W3C standards for the web.
"There may be such an argument, but you haven't made it"
Its a prima facie case. The world wide web is both tautologically and self-evidently
a global entity created and used by persons worldwide
prior to its ordinary use having been regulated in any meaningful sense nationally.
The onus is on national legislatures to write law that explicitly takes away rights
to use the WWW as it was self-evidently intended (by virtue of its design) to be used.
Such laws must define what kind of act linking is compared to other previously
regulated activities, and must stipulate under what circumstances it is illegal.
In the absence of such specific countervailing law, the de facto standards of usage
of the medium should be considered normative, and presumed to be legal.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
The bus is armored, the Nuns are packing M-16s and plenty of attitude, and it's all taking place at Thunderdome. It's gonna be a hell of a show.
Here's to hot beer, cold women, and Glaswegian kisses for all.
Drudge may be unpopular among many but it still has a huge following and can draw on support from the right-wing astroturfing machine.
I hear this kind of thing a lot: People hate Drudge, Drudge Report is slanted, biased, etc., etc. I agree that you can see that the Drudge Report editors often like to spin stories a certain way, but I don't see how it's much different than the summaries and headlines on Slashdot. Newspaper editors have always spun headlines to get attention, and headlines are all the Drudge Report really posts. If anything, Drudge doesn't editorialize anywhere near as much as the /. editors do. Maybe the site does tend to lean a bit to the right, but not rabidly so -- I doubt it leans anywhere near right enough for the serious Fox News followers. I find the site to be a very useful aggregator that allows me to skim through stories from various news sources, including ones I wouldn't normally seek out to read. It seems like a valuable service to me, and it's free. Assuming you're capable of thinking for yourself when you read a headline, what's not to like?
Breakfast served all day!
But this is, after all, slashdot. And with the new conservative bend on this site (notice how often townhall.com advertises here with various anti-Obama rhetoric) this is exactly what slashdot wants to have on the front page.
I know, eh? At this point, slashdot must be at least 15% conservative. Maybe even 20%. It's disgusting!
Blue Stone writes
In some countries, judges look extremely unfavourably on people who sue first and ask questions later, without attempting to settle things out of court, through less drastic channels. I don't know if the US courts take a similar view.
An example from The Lawyers Weekly, Vol. 20, No. 39 (February 23, 2001) was The federal Crown has been ordered to pay $55,000 in costs to two men after a Nova Scotia judge stayed drug-trafficking charges against them based on the "serious misconduct" of prosecutors and police.
Canadian judges seemingly get grumpy when anyone tries to bamboozle them, including the Crown prosecutor (:-))
--dave
davecb@spamcop.net
Dude, manipulating your mindset? Either you are a free thinker (center, left or right slanted a bit) or you are not. It's not like either right or left sites are digitizing LSD and feeding into your monitor....hmmm I'll be back. JK
But this is, after all, slashdot. And with the new conservative bend on this site (notice how often townhall.com advertises here with various anti-Obama rhetoric) this is exactly what slashdot wants to have on the front page.
I know, eh? At this point, slashdot must be at least 15% conservative. Maybe even 20%. It's disgusting!
You clearly don't derive that opinion from reading the slashdot front page. Every week slashdot features at least 5-10 articles that specifically bash Obama and/or the democrats, and about that same number of articles that praise or defend conservatives. IN the same time frame there might be one article that praises a non-conservative or bashes a conservative.
Thankfully for slashdot the advertisers have taken notice, one of the more prolific advertisers (as I already pointed out) is a conservative site. I have yet to see a single liberal site advertise here, they realize they have almost no audience here.
But of course, you are free to hold on to your fact-free opinion if you so wish...
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
You clearly don't derive that opinion from reading the slashdot front page. Every week slashdot features at least 5-10 articles that specifically bash Obama and/or the democrats, and about that same number of articles that praise or defend conservatives.
Currently on the front page:
Why Anonymous Can't Take Down Amazon.com
Watch 200 Years of Global Growth In 4 Minutes
Google Patents Browser Highlight All Button
Stallman Worried About Chrome OS
Archaeologists Find 2,400-Year-Old Soup
Michael Moore Posts Julian Assange's Bail
The Top 50 Gawker Media Passwords
Voyager 1 Beyond Solar Wind
'Jeopardy!' To Pit Humans Against IBM Machine
Comcast Accused of Congestion By Choice
Sheriff's Online Database Leaks Info On Informants
Ukraine To Open Chernobyl Area To Tourists
Why Video Game Movie Adaptations Need New Respect
IBM To Build 3-Petaflop Supercomputer
EPA Knowingly Allowed Pesticide That Kills Bees
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Announced for November 2011
Hand-Off, Reconnect To Verizon LTE Can Take 2 Minutes
Microsoft Backtracks On Accessibility In Windows Phone 7
Statistical Analysis of Terrorism
Anonymous Now Attacking Corporate Fax Machines
20 Articles posted in less than 24 hours, none of which have a "conservative" bias, or anything to do with conservative talking points. But no, that must just be a statistical anomaly, right? Let's analyze your claim instead! If we have 20 articles posted in 24 hours, we can expect roughly 140 articles per week. Let's assume that your numbers are correct, and that 10-20 articles every week either "bash Obama" or "defend conservatives". Out of 140 articles, that's about 7-14% - less than the 15% which I randomly threw out earlier.
In conclusion: you suck at Da Maths, and you're pulling "facts" out of your ass so that you can accuse others of having "fact-free opinions". You're also a blind ideologue and a blatant troll. You're swallowing the partisan drivel of your chosen political extreme, and seeing bias in any forum which doesn't go out of it's way to self-identify as a communist enclave. Either take off your blinders and learn to think for yourself, or go play somewhere else.
20 Articles posted in less than 24 hours, none of which have a "conservative" bias, or anything to do with conservative talking points.
That doesn't mean jack squat. I was earlier referring to the conservative voice and the conservative population of slashdot. The number of articles published in one narrow window of time does not do anything to refute it.
Out of 140 articles, that's about 7-14% - less than the 15% which I randomly threw out earlier.
Which again means nothing with regards to the political sway of the site or the people who frequent the same.
Although if you really want to try to use those numbers to somehow refute my statement of slashdot's conservative sway, you need to demonstrate that slashdot is instead somehow favoring liberals; which you conveniently have not done in any way, shape or form.
For that matter, this very topic is in the discussion of a pro-conservative front page article, which came right before an anti-Obama article. So if you want to use the front page articles to claim that slashdot doesn't have a conservative sway, you are already at a disadvantage.
In conclusion: you suck at Da Maths
Strange conclusion. But I guess that conclusion matches well with your demonstrated (lack of) reading comprehension.
you're pulling "facts" out of your ass so that you can accuse others of having "fact-free opinions"
I guess you somehow do better to simply ignore facts and counter with assumptions that neither support nor refute any argument you are trying to participate in?
You're also a blind ideologue and a blatant troll
As I recall, slashdot mentions that trolls waste people's time. Indeed, you excel at this. I don't plan to point out again how much you have failed at both countering my argument and presenting one of your own; if you can't find on your own where you dropped the ball then I probably can't help you find it.
You're swallowing the partisan drivel of your chosen political extreme
I was wondering if you would go for the classic "sucking the POTUS's (genitalia)"; is that the closest you'll go?
Either take off your blinders
If you somehow think you made or refuted a point that in any way connects with my original post in this thread (here's a courtesy link to it, so you won't have to click through all the "parent" links to find it), then you are the blind one here.
learn to think for yourself
I would not consider your posting to be a way of declaring your ability to "think for yourself". At best, you showed you can "think without the hindrance of reality".
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
That doesn't mean jack squat.
Of course not. Just stick your fingers in your ears, and yell really loud. That ought to turn reality into something a bit more manageable!
Although if you really want to try to use those numbers to somehow refute my statement of slashdot's conservative sway, you need to demonstrate that slashdot is instead somehow favoring liberals;
Hah! Right. And to prove that the moon isn't made of cheese, I have to prove that it's made of meat. Nice logic :)
I have nothing further to add. You've done a better job of discrediting yourself than i could ever dream of doing. You take care now.
That doesn't mean jack squat.
Of course not. Just stick your fingers in your ears, and yell really loud. That ought to turn reality into something a bit more manageable!
Wow, that is the best you can do? I actually took the time to show you where your assumptions were baseless and incorrect for the situation, and you counter with that?
Frankly, I'm surprised that you actually bothered to log in to say that, and put your alias behind your comment. Because really, the degree of utter cowardice that you show is staggering to say the least. I will take this as indication that indeed you didn't bother following the link I sent you back to the original post I wrote in this thread; because if you had gone back and read it you would have realized just how twisted your assumptions were.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
the sad truth is that the exact opposite is happening :
- the government is the one spying on us, while repeating the mantra "those who have nothing to hide have nothing to fear"
- while we are kept away from critical information.
if you need an example, see "anti-terrorism circus" vs WikiLeaks.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Drudge was driving traffic to the newspaper that published the image, just as Google does.
TFTFY
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)