Righthaven Adds Forum Posters To Copyright Suit

eldavojohn writes "The last time we discussed the Las Vegas Review-Journal and their litigating attorneys at Righthaven LLC, they were suing all the websites that had violated their news copyrights. Well, they've now added seven individual message board posters that they've managed to identify, bringing the number of DMCA-related lawsuits they have launched since March to 203. In one case, LVRJ is upset that a Google Groups user named Jim_Higgins posted a column that cited the columnist but failed to cite the original LVRJ article. But Google Groups is protected from these suits, as the article explains: 'Both the madjacksports and Google sites are somewhat protected from copyright lawsuits because they have posted "DMCA" notices as required by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. These notices, which must be registered with the US Copyright Office, inform copyright holders who to contact if they would like infringing material removed.' The first decision of this cluster of lawsuits was against Righthaven, yet the onslaught continues. Righthaven has publicly dismissed fair use as well."

Comments

Well.

[Black Parrot]

Righthaven has publicly dismissed fair use as well.

I'm sure a judge is really going to care if you publicly dismiss a law you don't like.

Re:Well.

[eh2o]

Fair use is an aspect of copyright law created by the intersection of two conflicting positive rights: one being the right to make scientific progress and intellectual inquiry, and the other being the right to economic protection of intellectual property.

As for the Righthaven cases, it appears that many (but not all) of the alleged violations are blatant by most criteria (verbatim reproduction of entire articles), however the amount of actual economic damage done is arguably to zero (a lawsuit over a post on soc.retirement? really??). On the other hand, people should be a bit more careful when posting stuff like that on public forums... probably not the brightest idea...

Re:Well.

[sgbett]

As much as I think it's all a bit ridiculous, there's a part of me that wonders why someone would reproduce an *entire* article verbatim (if that is indeed what they have done).

Surely, being the internet (in the colloquial sense ie the http part), they should just link to it and if really necessary only quote relevant excerpts? That just seems like good form to me, stylistically being perhaps the most useful way of using the internet as a means by which to deliver cross linked content.

Not that failing to do so warrants immediate legal action, that just seems like a big hissy fit.

Reposting != column

[Anonymous Coward]

"Google Groups user named Jim_Higgins posted a column that cited the columnist"

The summary makes it sound as if Jim_Higgins provided some additional material, with a few references to the original article.

I checked, and that is not the case. He reposted the entire article with no extra commentary or anything. Where I come from, that's not citing, that's plagiarism.

Blocked the websites

[basotl]

I just blocked the websites of the papers. I wouldn't want to accidentally see their sites in the future.... or their advertising.