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).
Lawyers love to make idle threats and request compensation that they know they have a snowball's chance in hell of actually collecting. It's a bargaining tactic. I'm sure nobody actually expects to have Druge's domain handed over to them, as much as some of us would like to see that happen.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
That’s their MO.
Another recent case by them asked for the same thing:
Also, what I don’t understand is this:
The DMCA is clear-cut about how to handle infringement. A company that side-steps the normal DMCA takedown process (which might have to be snail-mailed – that’s not quick enough for them though!) should have no right to straight away sue the infringing party. None whatsoever. But apparently they can, legally, get away with it.
Distributed Denial of APK: It takes 15 seconds to reply to him anonymously, but wastes tons of his time if we all do it.
...thereby bankrupting both and teaching us all a very important lesson. Never try.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
I suspect you're right - as much as I hate to 'root' for either of these two, Righthaven may have a valid infringement case here; The Drudge Report is hardly creating anything additional in a story. Of course, going from infringement and the thought that a DMCA complaint can be actually valid (Valid DMCA complaints! Who Knew?) to grabbing a domain name rather than the simple damages seems a bit odd.
Pug
An Invisible Entity of Vast Power whose existence must be taken on faith alone: Liberal Media
IMO it was stupid to pick on Drudge. If they had brains, they would have picked on some anti-establishment podunk site, one whose rights a properly shopped judge would have no qualms about riding roughshod over, and kept doing it to build up layers of precedent, then tackled something bigger. Drudge may be unpopular among many but it still has a huge following and can draw on support from the right-wing astroturfing machine.
However, from my perspective I get to watch two organizations I despise hurt each other, so life is grand. Sure in the end it just means more lawyers get to buy outside decks for their fourth homes, but hey, it beats watching high frequency traders cruise around in yachts.
Someone had to do it.
The domain name is an asset, with some value. It isn't unheard of to request a specific asset, rather than a financial payment, as damages. Of course, there is often a very large difference between the damages that are requested and the damages that are granted by the court. The only cases I've heard of where a domain name has changed hands as the result of legal action have been trademark cases, but I haven't actually searched for relevant cases so there may well be other examples.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
What you apparently are unaware of is that Righthaven is a company that was created by one or more newspapers in order to sue others for copyright infringement without getting the newspapers' own names on the lawsuit. Righthaven exists solely for the purpose of suing people for copyright infringement. One or more newspapers "sell" their copyright to Righthaven in return for the right to publish the material as the newspaper sees fit. Righthaven then sues anyone else who uses and/or links to that material for copyright infringement.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Lawyers love to make idle threats and request compensation that they know they have a snowball's chance in hell of actually collecting.
It's too bad there's no penalty for doing this. Seems to me the court system would function better if there were less frivolous garbage clogging things up.
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.
Why despise Drudge Report? All it does is post links to articles. Slashdot summaries are more biased than Drudge Report posts.
And BTW, I knew I would see a lot of people on /. waiver in their anti copyright stance on this one.
As someone else said, lawyers make huge demands, just as positioning in a lawsuit - for leverage.
The beauty of this threat (taking the domain name) is that it is a reasonable answer to the issue "How much damage did you really suffer from us using your photo."
"We're not asking for much - domain names are $30/year at Go Daddy. That seems about an even trade."
Point is, damage is well beyond the price of the image.
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.
Well, then, aren't you glad they don't have brains?
As for the GP . . .
And BTW, I knew I would see a lot of people on /. waiver in their anti copyright stance on this one.
Sorry for the godwin, but if you happen to be anti-nazi and anti-communist, you don't waiver your stance when you root for both to beat each other when they enter a boxing ring.
I read TFA and all I got was this lousy cookie
Lawyers love to make idle threats and request compensation that they know they have a snowball's chance in hell of actually collecting.
It's too bad there's no penalty for doing this.
There no penalties for doing it, but there are penalties for not doing it. I was sued, and decided to fight it pro per (without a lawyer). I did some research while preparing my response to the complaint, and found out it is standard practice to list every possible defense, even when they don't apply, because if some other evidence some to light, you cannot add another defense later. So everyone includes pages and pages of standardized superfluous boilerplate. Lawyers recognize this stuff and just skim over it.
Seems to me the court system would function better if there were less frivolous garbage clogging things up.
Both lawyers and judges benefit from a clogged, inefficient system. Since 85% of politicians are also lawyers, there is little chance things will change.
...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
Not even remotely true.
Sure it is. Drudge posts aggregated links to an article. /. allows the slant of an individual to post their own summery, and add their own bias to it. Usually leaning towards the left, as the majority of posters here lie in that camp.
Om, nomnomnom...
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.
Because he started out as a spammer, spamming tons and tons and tons of newsgroups, including rec.arts.tv, which is where I saw his spamming. He'd spam his off topic 'report' there, _and_ would never see the various corrections to factual errors he very often made.
He's no better than the Green Card Lawyers.
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?
It's all about pageviews, and not about the "slant," The bublegum machine comes out for more outrageous or controversial articles. Drudge never has been about the content of the story, only the magnitude of the story. It's too bad that the left hates him for breaking a story about a blue dress and a semen stain.
-- $G
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!
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