{"id":5170,"date":"2010-12-11T21:58:29","date_gmt":"2010-12-12T02:58:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/5170\/vegas-stay-vegas-revisted\/"},"modified":"2010-12-11T21:58:29","modified_gmt":"2010-12-12T02:58:29","slug":"vegas-stay-vegas-revisted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/5170\/vegas-stay-vegas-revisted\/","title":{"rendered":"What Happens in Vegas, Doesn’t Always Stay in Vegas (Revisted)"},"content":{"rendered":"

I posted this blog back in September on Myspace while I was there, but now I\u2019m here so it gets reposted here with an update.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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I have been following a series of articles published by the Las Vegas Sun Newspaper here in Nevada that has completely shocked me. If topics weren’t hard enough to discuss online amongst ourselves, there is something going on in the Courts in Las Vegas that makes sharing information and supporting your opinions that much harder.<\/p>\n

When I post information from a website source, or any source for that matter, I always put the information in quotation marks, cite the source, name the original author when known, and post a link when possible. Just as for research papers that I had to do in school. However, for anything put online, that just isn’t good enough anymore.<\/p>\n

There is a Las Vegas company of lawyers, operating under the name of Righthaven LLC. \u00a0It seems their only purpose is to surf the internet looking for copyright infringements of articles published by our other local newspaper, the Las Vegas Review Journal. When they find an infringement, they buy the copyright to the article with retroactive rights from the Review Journal and then sue the website that committed the infringement. When they sue, they ask for $75,000 in damages and forfeiture of ownership of the offender’s website. They don’t send a request to remove the copyrighted material or make contact with the website owner in any way. They just file suit.<\/p>\n

When I first heard of all of this, I really didn’t think much about it. The first report I heard was that the newspaper was going after a local sportscaster for something he used on his website. I thought it was just another Vegas pissing contest. It’s not.<\/p>\n

Under the Righthaven lawsuits (over 100 to date), if anyone posts even a portion of a published article, without obtaining the required permission first, they have violated copyright laws and will be sued. They’re not just picking on the big guys either. So far they have sued non-profit websites, hobby enthusiast websites, and even personal blogger websites whether they make money or not. They have sued bloggers for infringing comment postings by their readers. They have sued people that have given interviews to Review Journal reporters and then posted portions of their interviews on their own websites, with or without credit back to the paper.<\/p>\n

This isn’t limited to just websites in Nevada. Righthaven files in Federal Court and has sued people from all across the Country for these alleged infringements. From a woman in Boston that keeps a personal diary website from the perspective of her cat to major websites such as Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) and every type of website in between. This won’t be limited to just Review Journal articles either. Righthaven is doing so well with these lawsuits (settlements, no trials yet), that they’re looking to take on additional clients.<\/p>\n

So, if you’re a blogger or commenter that likes to quote information that you have read from other websites or post articles from various online sources, be very careful. You might be using something that the Las Vegas Review Journal may have published at some time or another. If the surfers over at Righthaven find it, you’ll be hearing from them.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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UPDATE<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Since posting that blog, Righthaven, LLC has over 175 lawsuits filed and nobody has found the key to stopping them yet.\u00a0 Some of those sued have big enough war chests to try, but most are settling the cases rather than fight.\u00a0 Only one of these lawsuits has been dismissed by any Court.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

It has recently been reported that Righthaven has acquired a big new client, Media News Group.\u00a0 Media News Group indicates on their company website that they own over 50 daily newspapers and over 90 other publications in various markets throughout California, Colorado, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah, Vermont and West Virginia.\u00a0 They also own a huge number of niche magazines, media websites, mobile websites, and email newsletters.\u00a0 One of their papers, The Denver Post, has already sold copyrights to Righthaven allowing them to file two new lawsuits.\u00a0 The first, against a blogger for reposting a column, and the other is against The Drudge Report for using a photograph of a TSA pat down.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

So far, Righthaven has been able to find over 175 infringement cases from one newspaper alone.\u00a0 Just think what they\u2019ll be able to do with over 140 additional newspapers and publications.\u00a0 As I said before, if you\u2019re a blogger and you use publications for sources or photographs, be very careful.\u00a0 Righthaven is still watching and growing.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I posted this blog back in September on Myspace while I was there, but now I\u2019m here so it gets reposted here with an update. \u00a0 \u00a0 I have been following a series of articles published by the Las Vegas Sun Newspaper here in Nevada that has completely shocked me. If topics weren’t hard enough […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[420,597,598,596],"class_list":["post-5170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-other","tag-blogging","tag-copyright","tag-infringement","tag-lawsuits"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5170\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}