They made news last summer when they acquired the rights to stories about Harry Reid's Senate race from the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Once they held the rights they started suing everyone who had possibly violated the copyright laws buy quoting the Las Vagas Review, including Reids opponent, Sharon Angle.
They also managed to snare a number of professional bloggers in their trap. From what I've read, Righthaven prefers to settle out of court, and since most bloggers don't have the time or money to invest in lawyers and drawn out court battles, whether the accusations are legitimate or not, they settle.. This is from the Right Haven Victims webpage..
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Righthaven Victims
A website that lists the victims of Righthaven LLC 'shakedown' lawsuits that are causing irreparable harm to bloggers and advocacy websites
Righthaven LLC -- a bottom feeding legal outfit -- has teamed up with the Las Vegas Review-Journal and the Denver Post to sue 'mom and pop' websites, advocacy and public interest groups and forum board operators for copyright violations. The strategy of Righthaven is to sue thousands of these websites and counts on the fact that many are unfunded and will be forced to settle out of court. Most cases are being filed in a Nevada Federal Court and must be fought in this jurisdiction.
http://righthavenvictims.blogspot.com/
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There's a great deal more information on their site, the topics include how to block out the many sites who are now affiliated with Right Haven and how to remove any potentially offending bit of information that may have accidentally found it's way to your site.
There's a discussion on Fair Use, when it's fair, and when it's not.
Is it your fault if a commenter plagiarizes someones work, and leaves it on your website as a comment?
I know some of you personally, I've known many of you for several years though emails and blogging together. The only person who has posted here since I've opened the site who I believe might intentionally misuse other peoples work has been banned for other reasons.
Even so, it's important that everyone who has a website or comments on websites know the law. For website owners, it is critical that you are aware of the sites which have affilitated themselves with organizations like Right Haven...
Sounds similar to the westboro gang.
ReplyDeleteI noticed Puma's fair use statement on her blog. I am thinking of adding the same. Good information.
ReplyDeleteSee this:
ReplyDeletehttp://grumpyelder-todayimgrumpyabout.blogspot.com/2011/04/righthaven-victims.html
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If you put a disclaimer on your page.. I don't know how they can win.. Typical lawyer ca ca.. Now.. LIBEL is another thing..
ReplyDeleteThese guys are doing everything in Federal Court, in Nevada, you have to defend yourself there.. and spend a ton of money doing it. Even if you win, you lose..
ReplyDeleteCopyrights are specific to original works and must be in place prior to or concurrent to making the works public via posting, publishing, airing, or otherwise diseminated. That being said, just because someone has purchased rights to something that is in the public domain doesn't necessarily enable them to recover damages for pre-existing work. Judge Kane is treating the suit in this way by treating the plantiffs in the nuisance category, and in some states there are penalties for frivolous suits. So an obvious response would be to file a state level suit for harassment, stalking, or blackmail forcing them to come to you. Filing a federal counter-suit in your jurisdiction for interstate racketering under RICO could be handled for you by the district attorney (assuming we could get Holder's group to do their job). There are a lot of ways to skin a crook, just think positive and keep posting.
ReplyDelete-Lefty Greene, ESQ (LG in 2012!!)
Seems like Extortion is part of their business model.
ReplyDeleteYou got my vote L.G.,
Your S.O.L. Brother,
Tupac Goldstein