Sharp as a Marble - If you can't beat them

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If you can't beat them

Today, The Armed Citizen received informal notice in the form of a media inquiry about a lawsuit against this website and its owners, David Burnett and Clayton Cramer. The lawsuit, reportedly filed in US District Court on July 20th, alleges that The Armed Citizen and its owners “willfully copied” original source content from the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

According to news reports, Righthaven LLC has reportedly filed lawsuits against 75 other political websites and/or blogs without prior contact or attempt at resolution. The sites include FreeRepublic.com, the Safe and Secure Internet Gambling Initiative and the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.

The “offending” entries consist of six stories, some of which were short enough to qualify under the Fair Use Rule, out of nearly 4,700 entries. The six stories are still publicly available on the Las Vegas Review-Journal’s website, to which we linked.

The Armed Citizen has been excerpting articles from newspaper, TV station, and radio station websites for a number of years. If any copyright holders decided that The Armed Citizen had exceeded fair use, they only needed to send us an email. Instead, in a bid to target and intimidate small websites, they have chosen to pursue legal action.

At this time, the future of The Armed Citizen is uncertain, and possibly in jeopardy, thanks to Righthaven LLC and the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Their contact information is listed below.

Las Vegas Review-Journal
1111 W. Bonanza Road
P.O. Box 70
Las Vegas, NV 89125

Main phone number:
702-383-0211

Newspaper office number:
702-383-0264

Copy of Lawsuit (As forwarded by a reporter…The Armed Citizen has received no official notice of pending litigation.)

To e-mail David and Clayton, write to Tips@thearmedcitizen.com

Further information:

Las Vegas newspaper sues websites over use of content

Conservative website among 3 sued over R-J copyrights

LV Review-Journal may be violating law with selective copyright suits

REVIEW-JOURNAL SUES ITS OWN SOURCE

UPDATE: We have removed all postings except this one until such time as we can carefully review each one for compliance with Fair Use–and it is entirely possible that they will never come back. Make you sure thank the Las Vegas Review-Journal for destroying a valuable gun rights resource because they can’t figure out how to run a newspaper, and have to make their money with dozens of lawsuits filed against multiple organizations for unintentional violations of Fair Use.

Copied in its entirety just in case something happens to the web site.

The Armed Citizen is one of the more valuable resources we have at our disposal. Over 4700 stories of successful self defense cases illustrating how effective an armed citizenry is.

I volunteer to host the content here on my blog if I can.

Damn this pisses me off. A simple email would have fixed any problem but these assholes have to try lawfare instead of even attempting to solve any copyright issues that might have arisen. And it's not like the MSM swipes shit from blogs without attribution all the time, at least Clayton and David gave proper credit and always linked to the original story.

posted @ 7/22/2010 9:09:57 AM

Incoming Links

Breaking News: Vegas Newspaper sues The Armed Citizen blog « Curses! Foiled Again! on 7/22/2010 11:08:15 AM

What to Do if You’re Company is Failing « A Geek With Guns on 7/22/2010 12:34:14 PM

digging their own graves | walls of the city on 7/22/2010 5:34:30 PM

Multi-Stories: Playing Catch-Up | Where Angels Fear To Tread on 7/22/2010 9:16:02 PM

Weer'd World Â» Afternoon Stupid on 7/23/2010 12:37:26 PM

DMCA Drops Another Good Guy « ricketyclick on 7/24/2010 12:56:19 AM

The View From North Central Idaho - Automated blacklist checker on 7/30/2010 8:53:33 PM

Comments

Weer'd Beard says:

on 7/22/2010 11:42:41 AM

FYI the Armed Citizen has been syndicated by Livejournal for the life of the site, so all articles and attributions can be viewed here:
http://syndicated.livejournal.com/thearmedcitizen/

Can't stop the signal!

Stan says:

on 7/22/2010 11:51:05 AM

If a court determines that the lawsuit was for arbitrary and capricious reasons would Clayton et all have a good counter suit?

ubu52 says:

on 7/22/2010 4:18:30 PM

Here's a good link about copyright law. Please read the section on "fair use" and then decide if you really want to host the Armed Citizen or not.

http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html

P.S. You cannot "cut and paste" entire stories and get away from the law by claiming fair use.

Robb Allen says:

on 7/22/2010 5:53:50 PM

Nice try Ubu, but how about we take the editor of the rag's word -

At the Review-Journal, we ask the honest folks who call to ask permission to use our stories and photos to give us credit and not alter our works, as well as to use them for only personal or noncommercial purposes. If someone wants to use something on a Web site, we ask that a brief summary be used along with a link to our site. We sell ads in both the paper and on the Web. These pay our salaries and help keep down the price we have to charge for access. Of course, we want as many eyes as possible on our intellectual property.

TAC posted excerpts and provided full links back to the original source.

The track record of suing blogs has been abysmal so far. It's a dumb move especially considering blogs probably drive more traffic to news websites than they can generate on their own via greater coverage and a more diffuse readership.

ubu52 says:

on 7/22/2010 6:34:11 PM

I disagree Robb. Taken from Weer'd's link above, here is the link to one of the stories:
http://www.macon.com/2010/07/06/1186465/armed-robbery-leads-to-gun-battle.html#ixzz0tEqhKbsw

Here is what the Armed Citizen posted:
***********************************
Armed robbery suspect in critical condition after gun battle at Macon store

A suspected armed robber is in critical condition after a gun battle erupted when the gunman started shooting at a Macon store clerk Monday night.

Rashan Lateel Jordan, 29, is undergoing treatment for a chest wound at The Medical Center of Central Georgia, according to hospital sources.

The gunman started shooting at a female employee at Expert Wireless at 3795 Mercer University Drive, according to a news release from the Macon Police Department. The 26-year-old worker fired back and wounded Jordan, who ran out of the store and tried to flee in a 2000 black Infiniti Q45. Jordan hit a curb and was taken to the hospital for treatment of his injuries, the release stated.

It’s not clear if anything was taken from the store, as police have not released any further details.

Anyone with information is asked to call Macon Regional CrimeStoppers at (877) 68CRIME.
***************************************

The only part I see that the Armed Citizen didn't copy was the big word UPDATE at the front of the headline. There is no reason for anyone to click on the link for any additional information.

ubu52 says:

on 7/22/2010 6:40:28 PM

Here's a link to the most famous lawsuit I can remember over this exact same thing:
http://www.law.uh.edu/faculty/cjoyce/copyright/release10/losangt.html

I don't know if the LA Times got any money for winning the lawsuit.

Robb Allen says:

on 7/22/2010 8:01:59 PM

So, using your own logic, you are now guilty of copyright infringement.

I am sending this page to the editors at macon.com and hopefully you'll be subpoenaed soon.

Or... were you copying something to make a point and assuming YOU had the right to do so because your point was legitimate?

divemedic says:

on 7/23/2010 6:21:11 AM

Here is the real reason behind the suits:

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/07/copyright-trolling-for-dollars/

Robb Allen says:

on 7/23/2010 10:36:51 AM

Read that link Divemedic posted, Ubu.

This has nothing to do with protecting copyright and has everything to do with naked greed. It is an attempt to obtain monetary gain without expending the appropriate amount of effort.

If you read in the article you will find that the shit sucking lawyer is well aware that he doesn't even have a case against many of the targets of his suit, but that it would cost more to fight than just to settle.

Where I work went through the same thing recently. Some company bought a 1994 patent and then went out of their way to sue every software company in the world with the express intent for settlement.

If you truly believe in copyright, you'd argue against this. This isn't about protecting the author's work, it's simply about trying to get as much cash as possible without putting in the amount of effort it would require to get the same amount via actually writing copy.

mike w. says:

on 7/23/2010 11:24:14 AM

As usual we see that UBU has reading comprehension issues....

Also, as Robb points out, this has very little to do with copyright and everything to do with the paper suing small blogs as a means of financial gain (knowing that most won't have the means or will to fight back)

And of course the Las Vegas Review Journal was very much in favor of "Fair Use" in the past.

http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2000/Jul-30-Sun-2000/opinion/14054767.html

But the courts have held there is a right to fair use. I can quote a certain amount from works of others in this column without fear of legal entanglement so long as I attribute to the original source and don't pretend the words are my own

Clayton Cramer did not pass off any of those stories as his own. He attributed every single one to it's original source AND linked back to that source.

Given that Righthaven LLC has stated they are doing this specifically for financial it strikes me as plain & simple extortion.

mike w. says:

on 7/23/2010 11:33:59 AM

So, using your own logic, you are now guilty of copyright infringement.

I am sending this page to the editors at macon.com and hopefully you'll be subpoenaed soon.

Geez, UBU's not the brightest woman around huh?

Weer'd Beard says:

on 7/23/2010 12:38:05 PM

Heheheh gave me some good blog fodder, thanks Ubu!
http://www.weerdworld.com/2010/afternoon-stupid/

Summary, the lawsuit is stupid...but so is Ubu52!

Jake says:

on 7/23/2010 3:51:06 PM

Ubu52, if this was about copyright, a simple takedown notice would have sufficed - contact information for the maintainers of The Armed Citizen is easily found in more than one place on the blog.

Mr. Cramer and others that have been sued by these parasites have stated that no such notice was ever received, and the parasites have never - as far as I can tell - claimed to have sent any.

These are predatory lawsuits intended to intimidate the bloggers into settling out of court, and probably to silence what they see as competition, as well - they're not just asking the courts for monetary damages and injunctions, they're asking to be awarded control of the blog itself, including the domain name.

Pure evil, that's all.

Newbius says:

on 7/24/2010 9:10:39 AM

This is another form of Barratry that, while "legal", is purely hateful abuse of the legal system for unearned gain. This guy needs to meet up with 999 of his compatriots at the bottom of a lake. That would be a good start.

Unfortunately, this guy is doing solo what Congress does en masse. Which is, to use the law and the legal system to extract unearned wealth from honest folks and steal their sources of income. They are parasites, plain and simple, and need to be dealt with as such.

A pox on all their houses.

ubu52 says:

on 7/24/2010 2:21:05 PM

So all of you support the theft of intellectual and artistic property?

Read the link I posted above before you call me stupid and say I lack in reading comprehension. Obviously most of you have no idea what "fair use" is. Check out that Free Republic lawsuit while you are at it. The judge in that case awarded the LA Times $1 million dollars but it was later settled for $10,000 because, as everyone has mentioned above, blogs don't make that much money.

This lawyer isn't doing anything illegal. He's found a way to make money -- and isn't that the capitalist dream?

Robb Allen says:

on 7/24/2010 2:36:17 PM

So all of you support the theft of intellectual and artistic property?

Nice leap there toots. Don't hurt yourself stretching your brain and trying to understand a point. Just make assertions with no backing. I won't really bother trying to explain it to you.

This lawyer isn't doing anything illegal. He's found a way to make money -- and isn't that the capitalist dream?

Nope, it's not.

A capitalist desires to better his life through the compensation of his work. He finds greed to be defined by the desire to obtain wealth without effort or risk.

The guy who sold Pet Rocks became fabulously wealthy. He did so because he found that people were willing to voluntarily split with their money for a chunk of stone so long as it was packaged as a 'pet'.

This slimebag purchased existing companies and then is trying to sue people knowing damned well many will simply settle rather than go through the expense of a lawsuit. I have first hand experience in this as well. All due to a company purchasing old patents and then suing hundreds of companies, even if the patent didn't match (like in my case). They weren't concerned about if there was merit, only if there was a settlement. Once the court case was set to counter the claims, they were dropped.

Is that legal? Yes. But legal does not mean moral.

ubu52 says:

on 7/24/2010 3:09:41 PM

This is how debt collection agencies work too. They purchase debts from doctors, stores, credit cards, etc.; then they try to settle with the debtor for whatever they can get.

Making money legally is the capitalist way. It's not just creating Pet Rocks.

Robb Allen says:

on 7/24/2010 3:18:08 PM

Debt collection is different. There is an actual amount due. Joe owes $30 to Jim. Jane offers Jim $20 for his debt, and then proceeds to collect the $30 from Joe.

Jim receives a larger portion of the money he was owed than he could have had he been forced to spend time to collect it.

Jane receives $10 for her effort, which was value added to Jim who may have lost all $30 and instead, only was out $10 (more than likely out of profit than costs incurred).

Everyone here applied effort into the end product.

This is legal only insofar as it is difficult to discern between a legitimate claim on something and this process of "Nice website you have. It'd be a shame if you were to have to lose it based on frivolous lawsuits."

The shit-stain lawyer here did not write the articles. He did not assume the financial risk associated with copyright infringement. And his end goal is not to regain money lost, but to gain compensation for simply leaving people alone. That's not capitalism.

Jake says:

on 7/24/2010 3:43:25 PM

Even more to the point, unlike in debt collection the line between what constitutes "fair use" and what constitutes a copyright violation is poorly defined, and a subject of constant controversy. Even worse, what one copyright holder may consider fair use is considered theft by another copyright holder.

Since there is no "bright line" in distinguishing fair use, the accepted practice is to contact the person using the material with a take-down notice, so that the user knows the originator considers what they have done to be beyond fair use. The predator here has sent no take-down notices. They went straight to the courts with no attempt to contact the users. Legal? Yes. Legitimate? Hell, no.

With debt collection, the fact that the debtor owes money to the creditor is clear. With copyrights, what constitutes fair use is very unclear. In this case, it's even more complicated by the fact that the originator gave open permission for others to repost excerpts as long as the originator was credited and linked to - which was done.

(FYI, on your little example of TAC posting an entire article? When the entire article is only seven sentences (163 words, 785 characters), counting the headline, it's normally impossible to make a relevant excerpt without adding commentary - something which is contrary to the purpose of TAC. Full credit and linkage was still given, and again, a simple take-down notice would have solved the problem.)

mike w. says:

on 7/24/2010 3:49:21 PM

This slimebag purchased existing companies and then is trying to sue people knowing damned well many will simply settle rather than go through the expense of a lawsuit.

Yup. We have a word for that. It's called extortion, and we can throw in a hefty dose of intimidation as well.

Of course it's also a failed business model for the dead tree media who hire this scumbag. Even if the Las Vegas Review Journal wins the suit they've destroyed their credibility, made a terrible PR move, and made themselves toxic in the process.

You start suing your own sources (as the LVRJ is doing) and folks will start treating you like you've got a bad case of gonorrhea. No one will want to work with any paper affiliated with Righthaven for fear of a frivolous lawsuit.

And UBU, we don't have to call you stupid or say you lack reading comprehension skills. You prove that consistently here, at Joe Huffman's and elsewhere. I'd be embarrassed if I were you.

ubu52 says:

on 7/24/2010 4:05:46 PM

Here's another article about the Review Journal and it's copyright issues. The author agrees with you guys but the six comments at the bottom explain the same things I am trying to say.

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=129470

Jake -- A summary of that article would be "Female employee shoots armed robbery suspect" with a link. That's all the Armed Citizen had to do. He didn't need to copy the whole story because he added nothing to it. He never left any "Comments" secdtion so there was nothing anyone could add to the story. "Fair Use"? Why would it even vaguely be considered "Fair Use"? Did his use of the story add to the Macon newspapers readership on their website?

Getty Images is going after those who steal photos and they are not sending "Cease and Desist" letters. They are sending out bills for the use of the images. http://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2010/07/21/the-stock-photo-industrys-massive-copyright-campaign/

I only posted that entire article to show what copyright violation looks like. Robb won't be responsible for it, nor will I because I am merely a commentor on his website. (That's already come up in court.)

Jake says:

on 7/24/2010 4:21:00 PM

A summary of that article would be "Female employee shoots armed robbery suspect" with a link.

That would be a very vague summary. Also, TAC doesn't do summaries because that would allow the summarizers opinions to slant the story. The purpose of TAC (as I understand it) was to present an excerpt without any alterations by the bloggers, in order to ensure the neutrality of TAC as a resource in the gun control debate. The excerpts were chosen to present the key facts while being long enough to catch the reader's interest. For an extremely short article, that may require the entire thing.

Getty Images is going after those who steal photos and they are not sending "Cease and Desist" letters. They are sending out bills for the use of the images.

The line between infringement and fair use is much clearer and more well-settled with photos than with articles. Also, if you note from the same article you linked to:

Unlike the RIAA and the U.S. Copyright Group cases, there are almost no lawsuits filed in these cases.

There is a huge difference between sending a bill and filing a lawsuit. The two issues really are not comparable.

Jake says:

on 7/24/2010 4:24:24 PM

And, Ubu, the first article you has the best analogy for this that I've seen, given by the attorney for NORML:

"The real analogy is this: You have a 1967 Corvette in your driveway, and you charge people $2.95 to take pictures of it. Someone drives by and doesn't know that you charge to take pictures of it. They take a picture, and you come running out of your house with baseball bat and demand $5,000 or you'll smash in the windows on their car."

ubu52 says:

on 7/24/2010 4:53:24 PM

Jake -- So why do you think it is "Fair Use" to steal a story and repost it? Why do you think it is fair to deprive the original news outlet of readers?

Everyone wants to build up traffic to their website. Would Robb approve if I created a mirror site to his blog so people could read his posts on my blog instead? I mean, more readers would get to read his wonderful writing without having to click over here. Would it be "Fair Use" if I created a website that was an aggregate of all the gun bloggers posts? No one would ever have to click on any of their websites again and I'd have fantastic readership! Just think -- One Stop gun blog news!

Wouldn't that be the same as the Corvette analogy?

ubu52 says:

on 7/24/2010 5:11:49 PM

Others get it:

http://glocktalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1246005

Robb Allen says:

on 7/24/2010 5:54:38 PM

Would Robb approve if I created a mirror site to his blog so people could read his posts on my blog instead?

People do it all the time. Google, in fact, does it via RSS - It reads my RSS feed, caches it, then displays it to an unknown number of users that I cannot access. People can read my entire blog without ever visiting me.

Technology prevents me from doing much about it.

Would it be "Fair Use" if I created a website that was an aggregate of all the gun bloggers posts?

It's called "Say Uncle". Uncle is the Glenn Reynolds of the Gun Blogs. In fact, when he links to a story (or Tam, for that matter), those are generally good days. Uncle could copy and paste my entire article, I still get good traffic from it.

Now, Uncle writes very little content and basically is a clearing house for links. He gets hits because he gathers links to other's efforts of writing without writing much himself. However, he adds value to my work by putting it out where others can see it. Even if he were to copy the entire article, it gets my name recognized which benefits me.

Now, again back to the capitalism part - If I feel that Uncle is taking away from my ad revenue, then I am open to suing him for the amount that I lost.

You may think that your writing is worth a lot, but honestly it's not worth shit. In fact, any single article rarely is worth the ink it's printed with, but only takes on value as a whole. My most popular post garnered over 30,000 hits in 3 days and I saw a total of $.18 from ad revenue. That's just life.

I'm 100% behind a lawyer asking for compensation that equals the work of his client. $50,000 for 4 articles is NOT what they were worth, and that is greed, pure and simply.

And you think you being a commenter on my site protects you? Really? So you're saying that if TAC simply had blog posts that said "today's defense stories" and commenters pasted entire news articles that the site would be OK then?

Robb Allen says:

on 7/24/2010 5:55:48 PM

Oh, and I think that journalists should owe royalties to the persons involved in any story they write. Because why should a journalist benefit from a story that involved me without me getting appropriate compensation?

ubu52 says:

on 7/24/2010 7:44:17 PM

Robb, Robb, Robb... If you had an advertising sales department (and a bigger circulation), you would have people going out and selling space on your blog for a lot more than 18 cents.

I agree that $50K is excessive, but lawyers always settle for less. How much would the RJ have charged to license those stories? They probably would be happy to get that amount, whatever it is.

You are protected from my comments because I am a third party. As a third party, I would be protected because I am making a point about copyright law and "fair use." I don't make a dime off my posts.

Anyway, I just hope some people are learning something from this little discussion. If nothing else, it might help others to avoid getting into a stupid copyright lawsuit.

Jake says:

on 7/24/2010 8:54:27 PM

Jake -- So why do you think it is "Fair Use" to steal a story and repost it? Why do you think it is fair to deprive the original news outlet of readers?

You are expanding my argument much farther than it goes. Let me put it plainly: Excerpts, with credit and links to the original, are fair use. When the original is extremely short - like the one you posted here - it may be necessary for the excerpt to actually be the whole article (something that's actually a pretty common practice, though that doesn't mean it's the same as fair-use). Because there is no set standard for how much is too much, the accepted (though not legally required) method for dealing with this issue is to begin with a take-down notice before moving to other legal remedies like lawsuits.

I'll concede one thing: while TAC's use of the article you posted here is arguably fair-use for the reasons I've already given, it can also be easily argued that it exceeds fair-use because they reproduced it in it's entirety. But, again, the proper thing to do would have been to contact TAC's owners to request that it be taken down - not to proceed immediately to a multi-thousand dollar federal lawsuit intended to bully them into a financial settlement.

Wouldn't that be the same as the Corvette analogy?

The heart of the Corvette analogy is not really the distinction of what is and isn't fair-use (even if that attorney intended it to be), it's the sudden and unreasonable escalation of force by the owner.

A better analogy would be this: At my office we have a large chestnut tree in the front yard. As the renters, the chestnuts it produces belong to us, and we collect them for our own use. There is also a large Asian community here because of the university. I don't know what it is, but they are absolutely crazy about chestnuts. It's very common to look out my window and see some Asian woman, often with her child, wandering through our yard and filling a bag up with our chestnuts.

Now, should I go out there and tell them to not take our chestnuts, or should I call the police and have them arrested and charged with theft and criminal trespass, then say I'll drop the charges if they pay me, say, $1000 for the chestnuts they took? That's what this is.

Robb Allen says:

on 7/24/2010 8:57:18 PM

How much would the RJ have charged to license those stories? They probably would be happy to get that amount, whatever it is.

Bullshit. If they'd have been happy to get that, all they had to do was ask for payment or request the article be taken down.

You are protected from my comments because I am a third party. As a third party, I would be protected because I am making a point about copyright law and "fair use." I don't make a dime off my posts

BZZZZT Wrong. If you were to do anything illegal in my comments, such as threatening someone, libel, copyright infringement, posting child porn, etc. the law has every right to ask me to turn over your identity so that they can track you down and bring you to justice.

If what you said was right, then I can simply recreate TAC and simply allow comments to post the stories and then not sell advertisement. Since I don't make a dime and others 'write' the comments, then everyone is safe?

Again, Clayton Cramer in no way took tens of thousands of dollars in advertising revenues (I used to work for a publisher doing the web work so I'm aware of what online ads cost) out of the stories he linked. There was no need for a lawsuit. This is a naked grab for money and has nothing to do with the real reasons behind copyright.

I love watching you squirm in your defense of a bloodsucking lawyer hell bent on extortion.

ubu52 says:

on 7/24/2010 9:42:38 PM

Jake --

Here's another older story about the RJ suing other people. http://www.firstamendmentcoalition.org/2010/05/sites-sued-for-reposting-articles-without-ever-being-asked-to-take-them-down/

“It’s unlikely that there’s any kind of fair use defense for simply posting an entire article, regardless of the motivation or beliefs about the law,” says Sam Bayard, assistant director of the Citizen Media Law Project.

Also, "While many companies ask other publishers to take down potentially infringing material, the law doesn’t require content owners to do so before filing suit." Why didn't TAC ask for permission to use the article? Why do you want to turn the victim into the criminal? The Review Journal didn't steal content from TAC.

Robb -- I'm not defending the lawyer but I am defending the Review Journal's ownership of any material they produced. There would be no need for a lawsuit if Cramer had asked for permission to use the articles -- but he didn't. He's an educator so he should know the difference between "summary" of an article and "verbatim copy" of an article.

As for squirming, hee! This is kind of fun plus I'm catching up on all the Mass Communications Law I've missed in the last 20 years.

Mike W. says:

on 7/24/2010 10:10:25 PM

So making a fool of yourself in Robb's comment section falls under your definition of "fun" UBU?

Under UBU's definition most of what happens in the blogosphere is copyright infringement and I've been a victim of it.....

URStoopid says:

on 7/25/2010 1:42:39 PM

Aww, dopey right winger discovers that people other than himself are interested in protecting their property from thieves, but the problem is that the thieves are friends of the dopey right winger! How to resolve it? Twist, distort, lie, make shit up. I.e., be a dopey right winger.

May the attorneys sue you too into terrified silence. Your selfish blathering and death cheer-leading only makes the world uglier. You and the attorneys deserve one another.

Robb Allen says:

on 7/25/2010 3:15:31 PM

URStoopid, congrats! I'm proud you were able to get the CAPTCHA question right!

Jake says:

on 7/25/2010 3:25:05 PM

It probably took him a few tries.

To Ubu and anyone else that still doesn't get it, Sebastian has stated both accurately and succinctly the main point most of us here have been trying to make:

My main beef with Righthaven is not so much that they are defending their copyrights, but that they immediately resorted to a lawsuit without first trying to resolve the issue decently.

Robb Allen says:

on 7/25/2010 3:37:42 PM

Jake, I know. I wasn't sure I wanted to bother explaining to it that I'm all for people protecting their property and that they should receive compensation when it's due and that a simple take down letter would have sufficed and everyone would have been fine. It requires an IQ above stale bread to be able to think in terms outside of 'stoopid rightwinger!!!'

URStoopid says:

on 7/25/2010 7:03:11 PM

Sure, the property owner is required to fire a proverbial warning shot at the crook before he shoots him, right? Just like you gun nuts consistently say you'll do when somebody comes to take your property, huh?

Hypocritical morons.

ubu52 says:

on 7/25/2010 7:04:37 PM

The law doesn't stipulate that a damaged party needs to send a take down letter first. The law allows the damaged party to file a lawsuit first.

On the flip side, why should they send a letter first when TAC could have sent a letter first asking for permission to copy the story? No one seems to be able to explain that.

Robb Allen says:

on 7/25/2010 7:10:47 PM

Because Ubu, the nature of way news is delivered has changed. Blogs and websites drive traffic by generally taking short segments of the referring site and then linking to them. The exact number of words for fair use is not set in stone. Very short stories cannot be summarized. Credit was given as well as the link back. That is the normal way of doing things.

URStoopid says:

on 7/25/2010 7:17:40 PM

Of course they can't explain it, Ubu. The rule of law is just an empty trope for them; they'll claim it when it suits their purposes, but they couldn't care less about law when it is wielded against their buddies. In THAT case, the law must be rejected.

It's called intellectual dishonesty.

Let the gun nuts explain why they believe they should have an unquestioned right to shoot first and ask questions later when a thief comes to their home with thievery on his mind, yet legitimate news sources are required to fire warning shots at half-assed bloggers who steal their content before they can go for blood.

This should be good for a laugh or two.

ubu52 says:

on 7/25/2010 7:47:01 PM

Robb,

What you are posting goes back to my disagreement with Tam a few days back.

While news may be delivered differently, the nature of news gathering has not changed. If the blogosphere/internet makes it impossible for "old media" (newspapers, TV, radio, etc.) to make money, we'll rely on what for the news? Tweets? We'll rely on citizen journalists sending tweets on Twitter?

If you go back to the link Weer'd left, you can check the rest of the stories. TAC ran long stories completely too. He violated the rules of "fair use" by completely copying stories. I picked a short one but he copied long ones verbatim too. Frankly, it was only a matter of time before he got caught from what I saw on the Weer'd link.

URStoopid says:

on 7/25/2010 7:54:09 PM

"We'll rely on what for the news?"

Oh, the powerful journalistic minds of people like Robb Allen. That's what!

Long live 'the new media'! Let's spread the ignorance and ideological distortion far and wide! America's future is bright!

URStoopid says:

on 7/25/2010 7:57:41 PM

Remember when the crook enters your home for your TV set, you are morally obligated to alert him to your presence and then kindly request him not to take the TV and to retreat. Only after that 'take down letter' can you resort to more serious deterrence. Unless you're a hypocrite, that is.

Robb Allen says:

on 7/25/2010 8:10:54 PM

If the blogosphere/internet makes it impossible for "old media" (newspapers, TV, radio, etc.) to make money, we'll rely on what for the news?

We'll rely on whatever replaces it. I'm sure the horsebuggy manufacturers weren't too thrilled with those newfangled automobiles being churned out either.

Look, where they copied too many words, I have no problems with the owners legal team protecting their rights. The best course of action, if you're truly concerned about your copyright, is to send a letter demanding the articles be taken down or pay for a license. Then, when the owner decides not to cooperate, a lawsuit is more than adequate.

Again, this has NOTHING to do with protecting copyright. We've already shown how it's nothing more than extortion.

ubu52 says:

on 7/25/2010 8:18:09 PM

URStoopid,

If you really want a laugh, go look at Mike W.'s blog. He thinks he is writing gems that are worth stealing! I can't wait until he starts tweeting the news!

ubu52 says:

on 7/25/2010 8:24:01 PM

I have to agree with URStoopid. You guys are twisting into pretzels trying to defend someone you know is wrong.

I'll agree that filing a lawsuit is a harsh first step to take -- but look at the RIAA. They filed lawsuits too. It's high time copyright holders take action. Letters are too nice. "Shoot to kill" like ya'll always say. Was TAC being nice when they stole the stories?

Robb Allen says:

on 7/25/2010 8:36:47 PM

URStoopid is a vile troll who because of his poor manners is no longer invited to play here. Agree with him at your own peril.

You'd also agree with him because you're too dense to read what we say and instead make up strawmen to attack.

First, I only shoot to stop a threat to my life or that of my family's. You walking into my office when I'm not there and stealing pencils isn't a threat. Nice try, but again wrong as always.

Second, I agree that if there are provable monetary damages, then the holder has the right to demand recompense. But because you walk on my lawn and tear up a divot, I don't have the right to demand you resod my entire yard, front and back and pay for new landscaping.

And they didn't steal the stories any more than you stole the story to post as a comment (which, if you believe what you write, makes you dumber than a box of broken hammers). They, like pretty much every blogger, gathered stories with full links. The line between fair and unfair use is not definable, and Cramer and crew were not trying to steal hits from those sites.

A savvy business who is hurting for revenue wouldn't sue those who send links. Again, the MSM must adapt to the new technology or go the way of the horsebuggy. And just because you personally cannot envision news without newspapers or radio doesn't mean there isn't a way.

ubu52 says:

on 7/25/2010 8:56:38 PM

Check out the RIAA copyright lawsuits. In the ones that made it to court, the music industry was awarded HUGE settlements. The Copyright Act stipulates damages so they would get whatever the court decides.

The line between "fair use" and unfair use isn't set in stone but we know the four factors that define fair use:

1. The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes

2. The nature of the copyrighted work

3. The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole

4. The effect of the use upon the potential market for, or value of, the copyrighted work

Acknowledging the source of the copyrighted material does not substitute for obtaining permission.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use

If these lawsuits do nothing more than stop other copyright infringers from stealing material, they will have accomplished a lot.

Mike W says:

on 7/25/2010 10:32:40 PM

Of course the reality is that the RIAA lost money ussing that strategy UBU. Perhaps you live in another reality?

Jake says:

on 7/25/2010 11:00:07 PM

On the flip side, why should they send a letter first when TAC could have sent a letter first asking for permission to copy the story? No one seems to be able to explain that.

Because neither the law nor common practice require it under Fair-Use. On the other hand, even though the law doesn't require it, it is common practice for the damaged party to send a take-down notice first.

ubu52 says:

on 7/26/2010 4:25:38 AM

First, I only shoot to stop a threat to my life or that of my family's. You walking into my office when I'm not there and stealing pencils isn't a threat. Nice try, but again wrong as always.

Ahhh, Robb. There you go, reaffirming my faith that gun nuts aren't all crazy. I hope you'll always use your guns to have fun and that you'll never need to use them for anything else.

I'm bored with copyright law. I read something somewhere that Righthaven is a corporation set up by the RJ publisher, so it isn't just a maverick lawyer working on his own. The RJ has a right to chase after people who infringe on their copyrights. They don't have to send a take-down notice first. The law allows them to file a lawsuit.

Since I read Clayton's personal blog on occasion, I don't think he did it intentionally. Maybe he thought it was like writing a textbook where, if you just give attribution, that's good enough? Unfortunately it doesn't work like that outside of education.

ubu52 says:

on 7/26/2010 4:42:16 AM

One last thing....

Here's a good news story in the "old media" regarding the RJ's copyright lawsuits: http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jun/09/entertainment/la-et-onthemedia-20100609

Much of the commentary drips disdain — just another establishment media company picking on a bunch of poor little upstarts. But others cheer the newspaper for standing up to the new-media freeloaders, whose best work is taking other people's best work.

Weer'd Beard says:

on 7/26/2010 8:05:44 AM

"Ahhh, Robb. There you go, reaffirming my faith that gun nuts aren't all crazy. I hope you'll always use your guns to have fun and that you'll never need to use them for anything else."

Ubu if you've read this blog for any amount of time, Robb has repeatedly mentioned the time he used a gun to defend himself from a violent attacker. The end result being the attacker ran away, Robb reholstered a cold and fully-loaded gun and called the Police who weren't very concerned with the whole event.

I would like to add just one bit to this story, I've been to Las Vegas Review-Journal's website multiple times. ALL of them have been because bloggers linked to stories published there. I live in New England, and the stories have all been defensive gun uses that were NOT carried by national sources.

So LVRJ has received traffic (and any revenue their advertisers pay for such numbers) from me ONLY because of this.

They won't win the lawsuit, they will loose money in legal fees, and I suspect there won't be much linking back to them or their stories anymore.

made of stupid.

Weer'd Beard says:

on 7/28/2010 9:07:11 AM

And with that Brave Lady Robyn has bravely ran away.

Such is her MO

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