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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.
Not even remotely true. Drudge exhibits its biases on a constant basis. They might not do it with lengthy prose, but they make ample use of the multiple tools in their arsenal.
First, there is story selection bias. Why does drudge highlight stories about "CityX has record cold day for DayOfYear!"? Because he's thumbing his nose at "global warming advocates". And that's just an easy example.
Second tool: link wording. He's not copying the source's headline, nor is he describing the contents of the article in some objective fashion. He's putting a spin on it with his choice of words. Granted, most headlines have a similar source of bias, but just because it's widespread doesn't mean it isn't real.
Third tool: highlighting. Why do some stories get the flashing red light? Why are some linked in bold red? Why are others bold? Others normal font? It's purely a function of bias. It's not the output of any objective function.
Is drudge worse than other sites? Probably not...although I think some of his biases are disingenuous (the aforementioned global warming issue being one of my big complaints. "Global warming" was a bad name, but right or wrong, it is certainly not proved or disproved because Arlen, TX had a record cold day on July 27th.). The biases that Drudge exhibits are true of pretty much any news organization. Only a more automated tool, more like Google News, is capable of being free of that sort of internal bias. Even something like Google News is subject to collective bias...if the majority of its indexed sites have a bias, the stories it highlights will likely have a similar bias...but at least it's not adding an additional bias for the most part (recognizing that they've added some extra functionality which isn't simply about indexing news sites...some "value add" stuff).