Righthaven Business Model Receives Serious Setback

POWER TO THE PEOPLE! 

To the blogosphere, Righhaven, LLC was a vampire!  (Then again, most lawyers and their business model are vampires).

So it is with great pleasure that I re-blog Wired's coverage of a significant blow to the grubby lawyers.  Kudos to all of those who were sued and said "I know my rights!" and didn't give into these slime buckets! 

Righthaven Setback; Judge Rules in Favor of Implied License

Our glorious friends at Righthaven, LLC have received their first legal smack down, and boy it feels good!  The Las Vegas Sun is reporting as of yesterday that new federal Judge Gloria Navarro, has given the go ahead to an implied consent license defense for Jan Klerks the owner of http://www.skyscrapercity.com and receipient of a Righthaven suit.


From the Sun's story, detailing the Judges ruling:

Navarro in her ruling wrote: "The defendant has reasonably asserted that the plaintiff's conduct may have constituted an implied license and that the defendant may have properly inferred that the (copyright) owner consented to the use, especially in light of the established and accepted custom of users freely and openly sharing certain information posted on the Internet."

Nice, stick the screws to these turds of the intarwebs!  Further, Judge Navarro opines:

"The Las Vegas Review-Journal offered the allegedly infringed work (story) to the world for free when it was originally published. It encouraged people to save links to the work or to send links to the work to others anywhere in the world at no cost and without restriction. The Las Vegas Review-Journal website also enables third parties to 'right click' and copy the text of articles on the site. Accordingly, based on this implied license, the allegedly infringing copy was, in fact, authorized by the Las Vegas Review-Journal and therefore, is not an infringement."

See, when people share original work for informational purposes only, and not to make a buck, it falls under fair use.  Perhaps this grubby lawyer should revisit the morality clause of his bar license! 

Update on Fair Use Suits

Media Post Publications is reporting that a new group is not just attacking conservative online groups, but also others who are allegedly violating the essecence of fair use doctrine by reposting news articles from the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

The Media Post (linked here and at top of the post) is also reporting that Stephens Media, owner of the Las Vegas Review-Journal transferred it's Copyrights to Righthaven, LLC, which near as can be googled, is a law firm that is seeking to further divide the pie of capitalism.  Good old lawyers, when you're out of ways to make money, sue someone to steal it while hiding behind the law. 

The Media Post Publication also has a good explanation of The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which is apparently the law behind these nearly baseless lawsuits.  The irony is though, it appears from further googling that Righthaven, LLC is also suing the DNC of Nevada.  Go get 'em boys, can't wait to see how that one plays out. 

Remember Your Fair Use Laws

The Las Vegas Sun is reporting that Conservative News "linking" websites are being sued over copyright infringement.

Just a MAJOR reminder to all bloggers and people out there, make sure that you ONLY excerpt, link, and give credit where it is truly due.

Full Story Here.