Spokane7
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The legal thug hired by the Las Vegas Review-Journal is at it again, suing eight more Web sites that used newspaper material without permission. But this time the newspaper may have met its match. A site named EMT City has decided to fight back in court. EMT City is being sued because — take note of this — a commenter cut-and-pasted Las Vegas Review-Journal material onto the Web site. The administrator said: “I was offered to settle this case out of court but have decided to fight the case on the principal that I did not cause the alleged violation and that websites should not be held accountable for the actions of a third party.” The administrator goes on to say that there is no case law of yet in this type of situation, and “I am going forward to hopefully create case law to protect this site, and all other forums on the internet.” The administrator hopes to raise $10,000 to help in the legal fight. More here.
Question: What do you make of the actions by the Las Vegas Review-Journal to sue small bloggers for using its material and then offering to settle out of court?
D.F. Oliveria is a columnist and blogger for The Spokesman-Review. Huckleberries Online was judged the best 2008 Idaho newspaper blog by the Idaho Press Club. And the best 2007 news blog in the Pacific Northwest by the Society for Professional Journalist. Print Huckleberries is a past winner of the Herb Caen Memorial Column contest by the National Association of Newspaper Columnists. The Readership Institute of Northwestern University cited this blog as a good example of online community journalism.
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Phaedrus on August 12 at 9:42 a.m.
The legal thug hired by the Las Vegas Review-Journal is at it again,–
Starr Kelso or Larry Purviance?
Christa_Hazel on August 12 at 9:48 a.m.
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/07/copyright-trolling-for-dollars/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+wired27b+(Blog+-+27B+Stroke+6+(Threat+Level))
According to this article and interview with the attorney, it is part of the new business plan. Apparently the paper is making money with the settlement offers. Active litigation as part of an aggressive business plan for the sole purpose to make a profit for the paper is ethically questionable, IMHO.
blueeyes7594 on August 12 at 9:53 a.m.
As a former resident of Las Vegas, I can tell the owner of the paper is very conservative. Since Las Vegas is number one in foreclosures, it is very possible he is doing this to make up lost revenue from subscriptions. I don’t know why else they would be doing this otherwise. I personally don’t see any problem with using a newspaper for information as long as you quote them as a source.
Sam on August 12 at 10:23 a.m.
There actually is legal precedent regarding third-parties and Internet forums. Though not directly tied to copyright law, it’s still likely relevant.
brentandrews on August 12 at 11:11 a.m.
I think they’re doing the right thing, protecting the core product. Shoplifting, mostly by “little guys,” costs American retailers $25 million a day (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoplifting). What does cut-in-paste theft and the free proliferation of information which costs millions of dollars to gather, cost newspapers in terms of lost Web hits, rack sales, and missed opportunity for their advertisers to market products? Nobody knows. What we do know is that the newspaper business has been declining amidst a swooning, blushing infatuation by editors and reporters over every new tech gimmick on the market. To me, on the outside, it seems that newspapers can’t give their products, and their time, away quickly enough. Every week there’s a front page come-on from my local paper to “join us on Facebook,” driving readers away from the paper and onto the Internet, and for what? So we might become victims, too?
brentandrews on August 12 at 11:12 a.m.
It is in the public interest for newspapers to make money.
fortboise on August 12 at 3:06 p.m.
“Legal thug” doesn’t sound like an appropriate term based on the Las Vegas Sun News story. They’re prosecuting thieves. You don’t want to be prosecuted, don’t steal.
Now, if a web publisher is being sued for a miscreant act by one of its subscribers, that’s a horse of a different color. Presumably their terms of service prohibit reposting copyrighted material, and they would have a claim against the subscriber.
Tougher to track down and collect THAT person, and it makes for an interesting test case of what “publishing” now means, to see whether the provider of web infrastructure is liable for the bad acts of its users.