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Judge Reveals Secret Righthaven Copyright Contract
Hugh Pickens writes "Judge Roger Hunt has unsealed the confidential agreement between Righthaven and the Las Vegas Review-Journal that has allowed Righthaven to sue over more than 250 charities, impoverished hobby bloggers, reporters, and the newspaper's own sources, for $150,000 each in damages and forfeiture of the sites' domain names, and the contents of the agreement could end up being ruinous for Righthaven's campaign of copyright lawsuits. The problem is that Stephens Media, the company that owns the Las Vegas Review-Journal, didn't actually assign any of the rights related to copyright to Righthaven except the right to sue — and that has been found in Silvers vs. Sony Pictures to be illegal under case law. In other words, none of the important things that come with a copyright — such as the right to make copies of a work, or distribute it, or make 'derivative works' — were handed off to Righthaven. Only the right to sue was given, and that makes the copyright transfer bogus, argue lawyers for the Democratic Underground, which is being sued for one of its website users posting the first four paragraphs of a 34 paragraph story."
If the Review-Journal was something more than a mouthpiece for the GOP maybe they'd be able to actually sell papers and wouldn't need to resort to illegal lawsuits to stay afloat. I lived in Vegas for 2 years and this rag wasn't even good enough to line the litter box.
Hey Yosemite Sherm, maybe if you made even the slightest attempt at being neutral in your NEWS SECTIONS people might actually want to read your swill of a paper.