Senate Candidate Sued By Copyright Troll 253
The Iso writes "Las Vegas based company Righthaven found two articles from the Las Vegas Review-Journal about Republican Senate candidate Sharron Angle reprinted on her web site without permission, so it did what it always does: bought the rights to the articles from the Review-Journal and sued the alleged infringer, seeking unspecified damages."
Next (Score:5, Insightful)
The more the better (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The more the better (Score:5, Insightful)
pft! Those case will just have "undisclosed settlements" -- and Righthaven will have more politician owing them when it comes time to vote on legislation.
How do these people sleep at night. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:is it really copyright trolling? (Score:5, Insightful)
That's it... (Score:5, Insightful)
Honestly, if there's anyone who really, truly believes--on their own, not because a few pushy groups with money to finance campaigns--that the current system is the way things should be, then this country has really gone tits-up. Are there ways that some of these abuses could be curbed? Sure, there are; but it should not be, by any stretch of the imagination, be necessary. There is no way anyone with a hand in copyright law before this generation would have wanted this type of bullshit.
To summarize, the extent of copyright should be to protect your work from other people making a profit off of it; if no one else is making money (DIRECTLY) off of it, then STFU, you're not losing anything you wouldn't have already not gotten already; if they are, then you get a) a nice injuction, and b) the sum total of what they made off of it (that you should have)...and maybe attorney's fees. And if you didn't make it, but you acquired the rights to it later, then STFU about anyone having used it before you had the rights; if the original owners didn't care, then you shouldn't either.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The more the better (Score:5, Insightful)
Hopefully Righthaven finds more politicians to sue. Lots more. Then maybe - just maybe - will we get some consumer friendly copyright laws.
No, you will get safehaven laws to shield politicians from these suits instead. Just like the Do-not-call-list specifically contained exemptions to let politicians call you.
Re:Really Slashdot? Really?! (Score:5, Insightful)
Nobody actually said that except you. Btw, Righthaven sued plenty of left wing sites too [blogspot.com]. They are apparently averaging several lawsuits per day so I don't really think there is a political agenda here.
Re:is it really copyright trolling? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Buying rights with the purpose to sue! (Score:3, Insightful)
Although, if someone is infringing on your copyright and you cannot afford to take legal action, shouldn't you be able to sell the work including all legal claims/liabilities?
Personally I would rather get rid of the doctrine of "holder in due course". Which seems to incite fraud, this just seems to incite vigilantism against those that thought that the victim was to inconsequential to worry about.
Re:Really Slashdot? Really?! (Score:2, Insightful)
So because a copyright troll sued a conservative it is somehow benign or OK?
Don't malign conservatives like that and don't malign slashdotters like that either. This woman is not conservative. She says she is, but a more precise classification would be "delusional." And those slashdotters like myself who find this a little amusing aren't saying it's okay, this is still a symptom of an incredibly broken copyright system and overly litigious society. Still, it sure as shit ain't sad when slightly bad things happen to dangerous politicians. She's going to a fraction of her warchest to this. If Fox news picks this up, it will probably be spun as a conspiracy to keep it down, will rally her supporters, and she'll come out ahead.
Re:How do these people sleep at night. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What is the name of the person in charge? (Score:2, Insightful)
Darl? Just sayin...
Re:How do these people sleep at night. (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe they're scared that Sharon Angle will actually get elected. I mean, a look at her positions SHOULD scare even copyright trolls.
Lets see... Thinks rape and incest should not be an exception for abortion? Check. Thinks global warming is a conspiracy? Check. Eliminating the IRS (like, actually eliminating it, not just grumbling at tax time)? Check. Wants to continue the failed prohibition of marijuana? Check, and possibly wants to restart the prohibition on alcohol. Etc..
Her hard-line views are what got her nominated.
What's funny is seeing all the "Tea Party" politicians running from the cameras, now that they've gotten nominated and don't want the broader public to know what their views are. Back in the regular world, politicians don't miss a chance to get in front of a camera and brag about their grand accomplishments and the more to come.
When a politician doesn't want media attention, you know something is *seriously* wrong.
Re:The more the better (Score:4, Insightful)
Not likely. If Angle wins, and that is highly likely, Righthaven can look forward to subtle changes in the law. Politicians do not see being trolled as a "favor" and tend to be very good at using power to punish their enemies.
Re:How do these people sleep at night. (Score:5, Insightful)
The people who originally wrote the articles don't even benefit from it.
This is why copyright reform is necessary. It sums up the problem in the most concise way possible.
Re:is it really copyright trolling? (Score:5, Insightful)
Unfortunately copyright law is not all that sensible these days. Big media has pushed for, and got, a lot of changes made, all of which make things more of the "zero tolerance" kind of setup. One example would be statutory damages. One would think that copyright damages would have to be actual and punitive only. After all, the whole point of copyright is so you can make money on your work. So to succeed you should need to prove damages. In the event of willful infringement, a court might then also impose punitive damages, that is pretty common. Tripling the actual damages is often the case.
However that'd mean someone downloading 100 songs online might get sued for like $400. You'll notice that's not the case, they are sued for millions. How's that? Because the law specifies statutory damages. That means that doesn't matter what the intent was or if there was any harm, you can get hit with a ton of damages. Up to $250,000 per incident.
Makes no sense at all in the reasoning for copyright, which according to the Constitution is "To promote the progress of science and useful arts." However it is real useful to step on people.
So while the case may be bullshit in the logical sense, it may well be on the up and up with regards to copyright law. I have no idea, it is far, FAR too complex for anyone who isn't a legal expert in it to understand.
Re:is it really copyright trolling? (Score:5, Insightful)
No, that makes it sound like the LV Review Journal aren't party to it. In fact the owners of the NVRJ also own Rightshaven. They set up the arrangement to pursue copyright infringers.
http://www.lvrj.com/blogs/sherm/Copyright_theft_Were_not_taking_it_anymore.html?ref=164 [lvrj.com]
There's no copyright trolling here. Just a case of setting up a separate company to do the pursuit of copyright infringement. A company which can then also offer that service to other content creators.
It's perfectly reasonable. Neither LV RJ nor Rightshaven are at fault here. The only people who are at fault are those who steal their content rather than create it themselves; who copy and paste rather than link; who go beyond fair use, and just reproduce the whole article.
Re:is it really copyright trolling? (Score:3, Insightful)
The copyright infringer has done exactly the same wrong, no matter who legally owns the rights. All we have here is the newspaper outsourcing their pursuit of copyright infringers to a separate company. And they've decided between them that the most effective way to do that is to assign the rights to the company that's doing the pursuing.
Let me get this straight .... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:is it really copyright trolling? (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes it baffles me that you can buy into a situation like that will full prior knowledge and still be allowed to even raise an action in court. In most situations if you knowingly put yourself in a position of harm in order to benefit through legal action (for instance, throwing yourself in front of a car so you can sue the insurance company) and were stupid enough to admit it, you'd be looking at prison time.
Wrong metaphor. Suing for copyright infringement isn't about compensation for harm, it's about enforcing a property right. The equivalent "real" transaction is buying a house with a sitting tenant, and then expecting them to pay rent even if they haven't been paying the previous owner.
Re:They are sociopaths (Score:3, Insightful)
Change it so that purchasing copyright with the intent to sue is illegal
Would it also be a violation for a law firm to take an infringement case on a no win, no fee basis [wikipedia.org]? Because in effect, there isn't much difference.
Re:The more the better (Score:4, Insightful)
OMG, from reading her Wikipedia article she is my ideal candidate. Amazing how to some these people are *crazy* and to others they are saints.
Re:The more the better (Score:5, Insightful)
And Congress is exempt from the requirement to have insurance.
Re:The more the better (Score:3, Insightful)
After looking at all the companies that Righthaven has sued and the fact that they are suing a person who will likely replace Harry Reid in their own state, you've got to wonder what they are thinking.
Re:Buying rights with the purpose to sue! (Score:4, Insightful)
I disagree. It's not that laws don't need to be reformed. It's that these kind of kneejerk, ahistorical, situationally expedient solutions usually have unintended results that are worse than the problem they are attempting to mitigate.
Consider: Your dad passes away suddenly, and you're going through his old effects and papers and realize that his partner's been ripping him off for years to the tune of millions of dollars. What can you do about it? Nothing, in your world, because you had "lack of standing at the time the alleged infringement took place."
Or you buy a house next to a scenic lake. After you've been living there a couple of months you start to feel sick. It turns out that the old Duponsanto plant for years had been dumping toxic waste into the lake and polluting the land. They cleared out about a year before you moved in, so you have no recourse because of "lack of standing at the time the alleged infringement took place."
But, on top of that, although the wording in the article is ambiguous, it seems likely to me that Righthaven purchased the rights to the work while the alleged infringement was still ongoing. So even going by your litmus test they would still have standing to bring suit.
Re:Buying rights with the purpose to sue! (Score:3, Insightful)
There's nothing wrong with suing for copyright/patent violation per se. You're forgetting that while yes, it causes fiscal harm to another, the "another" has already caused fiscal harm to the copyright/patent holder. In effect the lawsuit is just squaring the books and thus discouraging copyright/patent violation.
Where the problem comes about is when it becomes more profitable to file such suits than to normally sell the item under copyright/patent protection. The music industry has already passed this point (their current average settlement multiplied by the potential number of lawsuits they could bring far exceeds the entire RIAA's gross revenue). The Hurt Locker lawsuits come pretty close to this (~$15 million sought in settlements, vs. $15 mil production costs and $45 gross refenue). And in this particular case, since the company bought the rights to the article solely for the purpose of suing, that's a pretty clear sign that the lawsuit value of the copyright exceeded the value of the article under copyright itself.
When the value of a lawsuit for infringing a copyright/patent exceeds the market value of the work/invention used as intended, then you have a system which can be mathematically proven to be hurting the economy more than it helps any time a lawsuit happens. The solution is to scale back the awards in these suits so this is no longer the case.
Re:The more the better (Score:3, Insightful)