Bloggers Beware of RightHaven LLC; Federal Courts Used to Shut down Blogs, Discussion Boards & Social Networks, Websites; They Purchase Published Media Contents, Mainly Photos & Troll Internet for Blogs/Websites to Sue & Shut Them Down:
“[4] An affiliate of Stephens Media owns half of Righthaven.[5] As of January 19, 2011, 205 cases have been filed.[6][7] Typically, Righthaven has demanded $75,000 and surrender of the domain name from each alleged infringer, and has agreed to settlements of several thousand dollars per defendant.[8] As of December, 2010 approximately 70 cases had settled.”
“And update: This now means all bloggers, forum posters, social networking users, and Usenet users can be sued over news quotes/clippings, and even pictures but the funny thing is you can also be sued for your own content that you created yourself because RightHaven can get the copyright of any bloggers content then sue them for it. So this IS the end of Free Speech as we know it. Copyright is King! Those that want Free Speech have to afford a patent attorney and patent everything they say.”
This is directly from my buddy the Bobo Files; “has anyone else out there ever heard of RightHaven, LLC? Well, if it’s news to you as well – that is very understandable. Check out that link – they’ve only been in business since early 2010. Their primary purpose is to acquire copyrights from newspaper organizations around the country and then actively seek out bloggers to sue them over alleged copyright infringement.
If you look over to the far right there and down a little to see my blog badges – you’ll see a blog from our buddy Brian Hill – U.S.W.G.O. – It is when I followed that link to his blog that I first learned of RightHaven, LLC. Apparently, they sued Brian over a TSA pat down picture – this one. I didn’t see the actual blog post.
Brian had this picture up on his blog – On February 7, 2011 – that’s right – this very past Monday – Brian was served with a court summons. If he doesn’t respond within 21 days he loses by default. If you read the initial link regarding RightHaven, LLC you will see their tactic is to demand a minimum of $75,000 payment and to have the blogger turn over their domain.
If you look to the bottom right of my sidebar – you see I have a “Fair Use Policy” – It essentially states I may use copyrighted material without expressed written permission from the originator and it is in accordance with Title 17, U.S.C. Section 107 which says:
Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include—
(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors.”
According to Wikipedia.com; “Righthaven LLC initially purchased copyrights to a number of old news articles from Stephens Media, publisher of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, based on a business model of suing bloggers, other Internet authors, and Internet site operators for statutory damages for having reproduced the articles on their sites without permission.
[4] An affiliate of Stephens Media owns half of Righthaven.[5] As of January 19, 2011, 205 cases have been filed.[6][7] Typically, Righthaven has demanded $75,000 and surrender of the domain name from each alleged infringer, and has agreed to settlements of several thousand dollars per defendant.[8] As of December, 2010 approximately 70 cases had settled.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation soon took up the case on behalf of several defendants.[9] Kurt Opsahl, an EFF attorney, said, "Despite what Righthaven claims, it's hard to interpret these lawsuits as anything else besides a way to bully Internet users into paying unnecessary settlements."[10]
In August, 2010, the company entered an agreement with WEHCO Media in Arkansas to pursue similar actions.[8] Later, it made a similar arrangement with Media News Group, publisher of the San Jose Mercury News.[3]
In December, 2010 Righthaven began to sue website operators over republished graphics and photographs, and also expanded its scope to material originally published by the Denver Post and other newspapers.[11] That month it filed more than a dozen lawsuits over a graphic illustration of the "Vdara death ray" that had gone viral.”
Brian D. Hill of USWGO served with a Court Summons for Civil Action “We have just got served by the clerk of the court and so now we know that the threats RightHaven held against us were legitimate. Even though the accusation was over using a TSA enhanced pat-down photo, any law firm can own copyrights of anybodies stuff which means even my own articles can be copyrighted then I will have to take them down as well over fear of lawsuits so RightHaven has silenced my freedom of speech.”
Righthaven “Really Outdid Itself” Suing Blogger Over Article That Contains His Material “Wendy Davis on MediaPost’s Daily Online Examiner has slammedcopyright thugster Righthaven for filing a copyright infringement suit against Anthony Curtis, the publisher of The Las Vegas Advisor blog.
The allegedly reposted article in this suit was written about the defendant, and used his data and contained quotes from him.
Davis says that Righthaven, who is the outsource copyright plaintiff for the Las Vegas Review-Journal, “has filed some questionable lawsuits in the past, but really outdid itself” this time.
According to Davis, the article involved Curtis’s annual survey results on ticket prices for Las Vegas shows.
She writes, Curtis went to the trouble of fielding a survey and then shared his findings with the newspaper, only to find him sued for posting portions of the ensuing article on his own blog. … If there’s ever a situation where publishing an entire article (or the bulk of one) is fair use, Curtis’s post of an article based on his own research should be it.”
There are quite a few things bloggers en masse can do about this. What we can do about it, first, boycott and blacklist, and never step foot in any major websites who are applying those tactics, like the Las Vegas Review Journal for starters. Let their traffic unto their sites die a very slow death.
They are going to find out the hard way, that bloggers and news junkies are integral parts of their website traffic.
We can start our very own boycott badges.
It’s imperative that YOU must give credits and links to all sources of YOUR information, this is not copyrighted violations, especially if you are commenting on the written subject.
As to photos, this is a different story all together. My advice, it’s far safer to use Google’s or other search engines photos, rather than news website’s photos directly and give the credits for those photos.
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