Huckleberries Online

Posts tagged: EMT City

Las Vegas Paper Sues More Web Sites

Posted by DFO

Aug. 12, 2010 9:04 a.m. • 7 comments

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?

About this blog

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.