Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Law Stephens takes a beating in Las Vegas court
Posted by Max Brantley on Tue, Jun 14, 2011 at 8:19 PM
This is just for journalism junkies.
But the Stephens Media-backed effort to sue the bejeesus out of little non-commercial blogs that repeated items from their newspapers — an effort that Walter Hussman's media empire (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette is the biggest member) signed onto — lost a major court challenge in Nevada today.
Go to the link for details. The headline gets it: "copyright troll lawsuit dismissed as sham" is how the opponents of the Stephens-Hussman racket put the victory. Appeals are, of course, possible.
You won't see familiar names in the lawsuit. Righthaven LLC, which undertook the suppressive legal action, is, however, half-owned by Stephens Media, the Little Rock-based media subsidiary of the Stephens financial empire. And Righthaven had a deal with WEHCO Media, Hussman's holding company, to similarly shake down supposed copyright violators.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation stepped up to keep Arkie billionaires from steamrolling little bloggers in court. Takes money to fight money. It will be interesting to see how far this goes.
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Comments (17)
Showing 1-17 of 17
Let's call the Stephens' boys for what they are. Bunch of trust-fund babies who followed in daddy's footsteps thus winning the genetic lottery.
Daddy's were a bit different but at least earned their money (legally or otherwise).
F88k the pissants.
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According to a quick google, Donald Trump first used the phrase "Lucky Sperm Club" in 1987.
And here we all thought that we would never have a reason to be grateful to The Donald.
Well, what do you know! The judge not only ruled correctly, he essentially told Righthaven (how appropriately named!) to shove it up their collective asses. Take note, Stephens and Hussman heirs.
Silverback- Trump may have been the recipient of such Lucky Sperm, but that sperm was wasted on the likes of him. The part of the sperm that produced Trump's hair was obviously cancerous or worse.
Can the Blogs sue when the D-G lifts your stories and copies your reporting verbatim?
The Court's order goes into brutal detail to explain how Righthaven (and Stephens) made untenable claims about the nature of the agreement between Stephens and Righthaven and, more important, about how Righthaven violated court rules requiring the disclosure of parties that had a pecuniary interest in the outcome of the case (i.e., Stephens). It is also clear that this particular judge had been misled by Righthaven in this regard in one or more similar cases, and his honor is no longer amused. Vigorous advocacy in court is both proper and expected; outright misrepresentations and failing to make mandatory disclosures are not. When you go to court asking for something, you better make sure your hands are clean. Evidently Righthaven, Stephens, and perhaps their attorneys thought this basic rule didn't apply to them.
About time that Righthaven bunch got Bitch-Slapped by the legal system. Righthaven has shook down blogs left and right in this country. The Denver Post hooked up with this bunch a while back and Righthaven shook down Pam's House Blend (a well-known GLBT blog) and nearly caused it to go dark.
The WEHCO/AD-G association with Righthaven is one reason I let my PAYWALL-only subscription to the AD-G lapse earlier this year. I mean, besides how often do I want to see Wally Hall's so-called take on sports, or Mike Masterson's conservative rants, or some unreconstructed Dixiecrat from Bald Knob blabber in a Letter To The Editor. The Pine Bluff Commercial will never see me as a subscriber as long as Stephens Media is associated with those copyright trolls.
Taking someone's intellectual property and posting it as your own is plagiarism. It's theft, really, and you'd think so if you'd ever had something you created co-opted by someone else for their own gain, political, monetary or otherwise. You can't blame someone from trying to protect their own property, and you have to wonder about a judge who sanctions such theft. Resent the players if you will, but the law is there to protect us all. This decision only further erodes all of our rights and protections from those who would take our property for their own use.
Fair use as defined by long-standing copyright law is not theft. Calling everyone who has ever posted a sentence from an article with a link to that article a thief is a distorted view of reality.
I have no argument with the principle of fair use, but we're not talking about taking a sentence or two. We're talking about copying and pasting volumes of content without attribution or permission. This is what's happening, and anyone who thinks that taking the property of another is not theft is the one having reality challenges. Try expending all your energy doing research, and then pouring your heart and soul into a written work only to have some gomer take it for his or her own and selling advertising around it for the quick buck. It's wrong and it is theft.
Five sentences from a fifty sentence article is hardly a volume. And I see IP that I've created get used by other people all the time in my real job. I take it as a compliment, and I get far more ROI in publicity and traffic from it than I could ever make by charging someone to use a few sentences.
And what would happen if I charged a reporter for my quotes that I had to work hard to create? That would only be fair, as they make money by including MY creative work in their article. If newspapers had to pay everyone they gather intellectual property from, they'd fold. Their very business model depends on getting content for free and then reselling it.
Those are the economics of the internet. What you give away comes back ten-fold. What you charge for sends you into bankruptcy.
Ironically, the Arkansas Democrat Gazette's Paul Greenberg has recently declared that there is no such a thing as copyright. Specifically, he claimed that the First Amendment gave him the right to publish another author's work without his/her permission. Of course, his bosses don't see it that way.
http://arkansasmediawatch.wordpress.com/20…
Here is an entry on Pam's House Blend about their run-in with the Righthaven CT's (whom represented The Denver Post) a few months ago. Everyone on this blog needs to read and heed what is being said. This was the "final straw" that caused me to drop the AD-G paywall subscription
http://www.pamshouseblend.com/diary/19091/…
“... Paul Greenberg has recently declared that there is no such a thing as copyright.”
Ya don’t say. I just checked my copy of Greenberg’s book, “Entirely Personal,” and sho’ nuff, it carries a 1992 copyright. The book comprises 54 of Greenberg’s “most personal pieces.” Guess I can now publish one of ‘em, say the one titled “Manners and Morals,” and claim it as my own. Ya think?
This is another case of the wealthy attempting to limit the dissemination of information. One would think someone would notice all the carnage from the class war going on, but the MSM changes the tune whenever anyone learns the steps.
“If you find yourself in a fair fight, you didn't plan your mission properly.”
Colonel David Hackworth
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