The $105 Fix That Could Protect (ChiefsPlanet) From Copyright-Troll Lawsuits

[jAZ]

Kyle? Have you guys done this?

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/201...aven-loophole/

The $105 Fix That Could Protect You From Copyright-Troll Lawsuits
By David Kravets October 27, 2010 | 1:54 pm | Categories: Copyrights and Patents, Digital Millennium Copyright Act

Call it ingenious, call it evil or call it a little of both: Copyright troll Righthaven is exploiting a loophole in intellectual property law, suing websites that might have avoided any trace of civil liability had they spent a mere $105.

That’s the fee for a blog or other website to register a DMCA takedown agent with the U.S. Copyright Office, an obscure bureaucratic prerequisite to enjoying a legal “safe harbor” from copyright lawsuits over third-party posts, such as reader comments.

There’s no better time to become acquainted with that requirement.

Founded in March, the Las Vegas-based Righthaven has begun buying out the copyrights to newspaper content of the Las Vegas Review-Journal for the sole purpose of suing blogs and websites that re-post, or even excerpt, those articles without permission. The company has settled about 60 of 160 cases for a few thousand dollars each, and plans to expand its operations to other newspapers across the country.

Many of its lawsuits arise, not from articles posted by a website’s proprietors, but from comments and forum posts by the site’s readers. Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a website enjoys effective immunity from civil copyright liability for user content, provided they, promptly remove infringing material at the request of a rightsholder. That’s how sites like YouTube are able to exist, and why Wired.com allows users to post comments to our stories without fear that a single user’s cut-and-paste will cost us $150,000 in court.

But to dock in that legal safe harbor, a site has to, among other things, register an official contact point for DMCA takedown notices, a process that involves filling out a form and mailing a check to the government. An examination of Righthaven’s lawsuits targeting user content suggests it’s specifically going after sites that failed to fill out that paperwork.

“The DMCA is a good deterrent from being sued,” says Kurt Opsahl, a staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, “Complying with conditions of eligibility for the safe harbor is a good thing to do. It probably will prevent somebody from suing you in the first place.”

The EFF is defending political community site Democratic Underground from a Righthaven suit stemming from a user’s posting of four paragraphs from a 34-paragraph Review-Journal story on Sharron Angle, the Republican Nevada candidate for Senate entitled “Tea party fuels Angle.” The brevity of the excerpt, and the fact that the post links back to the original story, gives Democratic Underground a strong fair use defense. But had it registered with the Copyright Office, it wouldn’t even have to make that argument.

Opsahl doesn’t believe any of the sites Righthaven has sued had a designated agent, though not all of the cases involve user posts. (Righthaven did not respond to inquiries for this story.)

If you run a U.S. blog or a community site that accepts user content, you can register a DMCA agent by downloading this form (.pdf) and sending $105 and the form to Copyright RRP, Box 71537, Washington, D.C., 20024.

Opsahl and other experts note that failing to qualify for the DMCA safe harbor still leaves you with fact-based defenses from a lawsuit, including the defense, supported by some case law, that infringing third-party posts aren’t your responsibility.

Ben Sheffner, a Hollywood copyright attorney and the man behind the must-read blog Copyrights & Campaigns, says there is a reason the DMCA demands a takedown agent, which is supported by a recent court ruling.

“The idea is you need to make it easy for copyright owners to locate who you send infringement notices to,” he says. “They shouldn’t have to go hunting around.”

[HemiEd]

Interesting, almost seems like a legal scam.

[Vegas_Dave]

Makes me proud to live in Las Vegas. Crooks find their way into this city too easily!

[BossChief]

hold on, people sue websites like this?

haha

bleeding a turnip?

[007]

Meh, just post links from now on. Simple solution.

[jAZ]

No they sue websites like this and the owner of the website, who presumably has the resources to finance the website operation and pay a couple grand to settle out of court.

If this Righthaven were to sign contracts with any local or major news papers, this website could be shut down for good. We have thousands of... wait... did I actually paste the entire Wired article into the opening post?

hahahahahaha! Doh!

[Zaiko]

I think we can reasonably assume wired.com has their $105 whatever the hell it is if they're posting this article.

[Bugeater]

Originally Posted by Guru

Meh, just post links from now on. Simple solution.

But then I have to click them!

[jAZ]

Originally Posted by Zaiko

I think we can reasonably assume wired.com has their $105 whatever the hell it is if they're posting this article.

That makes no sense.

Wired wrote that article.

The question is has ChiefsPlanet registered a "takedown agent" which I assume is providing a name and contact info for guys like Righthaven to call/email to demand an article be taken down instead of being permitted to file a lawsuit.

[jAZ]

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2011...campaign-indi/

Righthaven extends copyright lawsuit campaign to individual Web posters
By Steve Green (contact)
Wednesday, Jan. 12, 2011 | 4:33 p.m.

Las Vegas copyright enforcement company Righthaven LLC is now suing individual message-board posters, not just website operators.

Righthaven, which files copyright infringement lawsuits over unapproved online postings of material from the Las Vegas Review-Journal and the Denver Post, filed seven infringement lawsuits Tuesday and Wednesday in U.S. District Court for Nevada, lifting its lawsuit total since March to at least 203.

Among the defendants sued Monday were message board posters identified as James Higgins and Wayne Hoehn.

Higgins, according to Righthaven, posts as Jim_Higgins on a Google Groups message board. Records indicate that on Nov. 21 he posted a Review-Journal column about Transportation Security Administration pat downs of the elderly and disabled at Reno-Tahoe International Airport. The post credited columnist John L. Smith but didn't credit the Review-Journal, records show.

Righthaven said Hoehn posts as "Dogs that Bark" on the website madjacksports.com, where Righthaven says that since 1999 Hoehn has posted about 18,000 items. Among those, the lawsuit says, was an unauthorized copy of a Review-Journal column called "Public employee pensions -- we can't afford them."

That post, records show, credited the Review-Journal and columnist Sherman Frederick.

In the past, some message-board users were sued by Righthaven, but they were named as codefendants along with the websites where the material was posted.

The lawsuits against Higgins and Hoehn differ in that the websites where the material was posted aren't being sued. Because of that, Righthaven is not trying to seize the Google Groups and madjacksports domain names.

In fact, Righthaven previously sued and settled with the owner of the madjacksports site.

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 U.S. Copyright Office, inform copyright holders who to contact if they would like infringing material removed.

An attorney for Righthaven on Wednesday said those notices don't apply to individual website users who violate copyrights by posting material online without authorization.

"Whenever there is a direct infringement claim against an individual who is a user or a poster on a 'service provider,' as described in the DMCA, a 'takedown' notice is not required to file suit," said Shawn Mangano, a Las Vegas attorney representing Righthaven in the litigation.

As usual in its lawsuits, Righthaven demands $150,000 in damages from both Higgins and Hoehn.

Separately, new Righthaven suits were filed against five website operators, along with two website users, claiming material from the Review-Journal was posted on those sites without authorization. These suits seek damages of $150,000 apiece and forfeiture of the defendants' domain names.

Those defendants are:

-- Business Insider Inc., owner of the website businessinsider.com; and Gus Lubin, identified as the features editor of Business Insider.

-- Inform Technologies Inc., owner of the website yuku.com; and yuku.com user Todd Taliaferro, identified on the site as "Todd8080"

-- Inform Technologies and yuku.com user Lisa Vinci, identified there as "bogglethemind."

-- Bob G. Bell; registrant of the domain name americanarchaeologist.com

-- Peter Ashton, owner of the domain name peteashton.com

Messages for comment on the lawsuits were left with Higgins, Lubin, Inform Technologies, Bell and Ashton. Hoehn couldn't immediately be located for comment.

Righthaven, which is half owned by an affiliate of Review-Journal owner Stephens Media LLC, says its lawsuits, typically filed without warning, are necessary to crack down on rampant online infringement of newspaper stories, columns, editorials, photos and graphics.

Prior to the Righthaven lawsuits, the Review-Journal and Denver Post generally tried to resolve copyright disputes out of court and that's still the practice of most of the newspaper industry.

Critics and defense attorneys call the lawsuits frivolous and in some cases are fighting back, hitting Stephens Media and Righthaven with counterclaims charging abuse of the court system and the copyright law.

Most of the lawsuits are settled, apparently for under five figures, and Righthaven observers are waiting for Nevada federal judges handling the contested cases to issue rulings on several motions for dismissal.

So far, the only definitive ruling is one that went against Righthaven when a judge found a Las Vegas real estate agent was protected by the fair use doctrine in posting part of a Review-Journal story on his website.

[jAZ]

Bump.

[Bwana]

Originally Posted by jAZ

Bump.

Grind

[Mr. Laz]

Originally Posted by jAZ

Bump.

Originally Posted by Bwana

Grind

JIMP

[Dante84]

There ain't nothing wrong

[R8RFAN]

a paragraph and a link