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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.
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
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.
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.
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.
There is actually a difference, though.
This government, in theory, is of, by, and for the people. (Yes, I know, it's not a democracy, it's a republic.) Because the people pay taxes to the government, and vote politicians into office, and the government exists solely to serve the people, the people have a right to know how their taxes are being spent, what their politicians are doing, and what the government is doing for or against them.
On the other hand, the people do not exist for the government. It's not the government's business what the people do, except when the people are employed by the government (and then only what they do on the clock,) when the people are using government services (in which case, the government has an obligation to make sure that the minimum of their services are required, to save the taxpayer money,) or when other people are being wronged, and the people have decided that that particular wrong should be addressed by the government.
In summary: People have a right to know what their government is doing, government has no right to know what its people are doing other than what affects other people under the government. So, no, it's not hypocritical to say that the government shouldn't hide anything, yet the people can hide.
MY business is not the government's business.
However, the government's business is most definitely my business.
That isn't hypocrisy, that's the realization that this isn't a symmetrical relationship.
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?