We’ve all heard of patent trolls who buy up patents without using them to make any products. Their only goal is to seek out possible infringers and sue them, making money via the justice system. It was only a matter of time, but we’ve now got something new: copyright trolls.
There’s a company called Righthaven in that little piece of The Netherlands in Nevada called Las Vegas. We’ve heard of patent trolls, and most of us will probably despise them for hurting innovation and abusing the (already severely broken) US patent system. Well, Righthaven has a somewhat similar business model, but instead of buying up patents, this company buys up copyrights.
Right now, the newspaper Las Vegas Review-Journal™®℠is the company’s only client. Righthaven buys the copyrights to some of the newspaper’s articles and then scours the web for possible infringements. Without any form of a notice or warning, Righthaven then moves to sue the infringers, relying on the over-the-top penalties possible under the US Copyright Act (up to $150000 per infringement).
“We believe it’s the best solution out there,” Steve Gibson, the company’s CEO told Wired, “Media companies’ assets are very much their copyrights. These companies need to understand and appreciate that those assets have value more than merely the present advertising revenues.”
Gibson foresees big business and big profits in Righthaven’s future, and is currently working on hundreds of lawsuits. Luck would have it that the Review-Journal™®℠‘s parent company owns over 70 newspapers in nine other US states, so there’s lots of room to grow even with just one client. “We perceive there to be millions, if not billions, of infringements out there,” Gibson states.
They file complaints everyday, Gibson states, and one of those is making headline news in Nevada. Righthaven is accusing Republican US Senate candidate Sharron Angle for reprinting two (2) Review-Journal™®℠articles on her campaign website; Righthaven states they’re entitled up to $150000 in damages. The Angle campaign said they would not comment on the case until the lawsuit has been studied in more detail.
“Righthaven LLC vigorously enforces the copyrighted work of Review-Journal reporters, columnists and editors,” Mark Hinueber, the Review-Journal™®℠‘s vice president and general counsel, told the Review-Journal™®℠, “We expect everyone to comply with the copyright laws of the United States. It is never appropriate to utilize entire Review-Journal™®℠articles or columns without prior, express written permission of the newspaper.”
The previous paragraph has been lifted almost entirely from an article on the Review-Journal™®℠‘s website, so I hope we don’t get sued by Righthaven. In any case, while violating copyright this way is against the law in the US, I don’t think this ought to be the goal of the Copyright Act (in any country).
Righthaven is turning copyrights into patents, something that exists solely to make profits from, even without actually creating a damn thing. I don’t think it is possible to insult our leaders of yore, who invented copyright to promote the arts and sciences, to any greater degree than this.
The copyright troll claims that “the number of newspapers that are struggling financially has increased since the advent of the Internet”, which he apparently sees as justification for his despicable business practice. Of course, you could also think that the internet is simply what we call progress, and a new competitor for newspapers to deal with – or work with. I guess it didn’t cross Hinueber’s mind that maybe, just maybe, his dead tree business model is failing, and failing hard. If you can’t compete, litigate. That goes for Apple, Nokia, the RIAA, and, as it turns out, for some newspapers as well.
Oh and Righthaven, go to hell.
…is completely contrary to the original idea behind the scheme. If you think about why we have copyright, to provide a marked for artists and authors that will encourage the further development of writing and the arts, being allowed to sell on that copyright makes very little sense to me. In fact, I’ve found that in the music industry this leads to serious abuses of artists. If they are not careful at the time of signing a recording contract they may find that they have inadvertently “sold” away the rights to their own work.
If a copyright is granted, it should be granted to the applicant for life. I don’t see how allowing the retailing of what is a limited monopoly in any way helps further the arts.
The problem with the “for life” term is that corporations (which can also establish copyrights) don’t die naturally.
Color me surprised – when you give copyright holders as much power as they have now – you’re bound to find abuse.
If this keeps up, all the information in our world will eventually be “owned” and kept under lock and key.
I had forgotten about corporations, thanks for pointing that out. As you so rightly put it, corporations don’t have a natural life span so to grant copyright on that specific time limit would be absurd.
As for corporations buying up copyright and locking the affected works away, that’s already in full swing. If Disney get their way, we may never see “Steamboat Willie” released into the public domain.
Knowlege is power, share the wealth… or keep it hidden locked and ask money for it.
You know, money is power, too.
Your are so naive. Copyrights are sold daily to corporates. If you ever get to work and write thing like manual, you don’t own the copyright, company owns it. Same goes on lot of other stuff. What this company does isn’t wrong, but how they “protect” copyrights is. Keep mind there is quite strong code what and how much you can copy from other copyright. Unfortunatly in internet age lot of people who have no clue how this works are taking parts of others copyrighted materials causing them to broke copyright law by accident. Righthaven is using this weakness like bully and attacking those weak ones.
Why would my statement make me naive? Where in my post does it say that I don’t understand and know about corporations trading in copyrights? For that matters, where in your post does it explain why I’m being naive?
If you can’t understand what I wrote then please refrain from commenting on my level of sophistication in these matters.
regarding the ‘lifting’ of a paragraph from their homepage: that’s obviously covered by the ‘fair use’ doctrine. otherwise, even copying a page from some book at a library would be illegal (which it’s not).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use
Edited 2010-09-06 18:26 UTC
I’m not so sure this is covered by fair use. You see, Righthaven are alleging that Sharron Angle reprinted two whole articles on her website. Usually that kind of situation is not an issue if the person reprinting the articles mentions the source but in this case, Righthaven aren’t even the source, they bought the copyright with the sole intentions of suing.
I may have misunderstood this, but aren’t they working on behalf of the client which owns the copyright—no buying involved.
Regarding your earlier statement, when work is done on commission, would you not regard this as a legitimate case of copyright transferring from one individual or organisation to another? Ghost writers, for example. And if not, where do you draw the line? If the ghost writer wrote half of someone’s book, do they then own half, capable therefore of holding the named author’s work effectively to ransom? Just an example.
Read carefully. They buy.
Both the OSNews article and the original Wired.com article clearly state that the copyright is being bought by Righthaven, they are not in any way representing the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
As for the transferal of copyright and the examples you mentioned above, copyright must be applied for first before it is granted so the ghost writer or employee would have to apply for the copyright first, before the company who had commissioned the work has done so. Companies and those that commission works usually use contracts that stipulate to whom the copyright shall belong to once the commissioned work is finished.
Obviously, if the contract says nothing about copyright, it’s a free for all but I guaranty that in any situation where copyright could become an issue, the question will be covered in the contract. In that way, if either of the two parties is in violation, they would automatically be liable under contract law.
My mistake. That’s what you get from reading the article, doing something else then commenting.
As to the rest of what you said, that’s all true (except that copyright is automatic rather than applied for, at least in the UK). I’m afraid I misinterpreted your position. Note to self: must read more carefully.
I just had a quick look at wikipedia and you’re right about copyright being automatically granted in most countries, although the following line gives a little more detail on the subject as well as your question on works for hire:
‘However, while registration isn’t needed to exercise copyright, in jurisdictions where the laws provide for registration, it serves as prima facie evidence of a valid copyright. The original copyright owner of the copyright may be the employer of the author rather than the author himself, if the work is a “work for hire”‘
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright#Obtaining_copyright
I’d like to remind you that Apple (that uses patents not to gain licensing revenue, but to stiffle competition) is the only company Nokia is suing for patent infringement.
http://www.copyright.com/viewPage.do?pageCode=cr10-n
Careful! You quoted a pretty substantial portion of that page… Righthaven may purchase the rights to it in the future and you could be on their list…
Edited 2010-09-06 21:13 UTC
I doubt it since that page belongs to the largest copyright repermissioning company in the world.
Edited 2010-09-06 21:30 UTC
Unluckily, it is fast becoming a way for “smart” people to “take” money from others, regardless of how ugly and unethical their actions sometimes can be. It make me remember my poor country, where we had a maxim more or less like this: “The important thing is to take advantage of everything”. Sadly, USA society is fast embracing it too.
Maybe I am misunderstanding what is going on, but copyright law is designed to protect one’s artistic or intellectual property in certain ways.
If one wants to share, yet still profit from, their ideas or product why should they not invoke copyright law? Why should they not allow for their works to be protected?
I don’t see how a company that actually searches for violations is “bad”.
My remark, not clear for sure, was about the modi operandi involved on these actions, following the same pattern used by patent trolls, i.e. buy to litigate, and the “green light” the USA “society” (I really should say elite) give to such trolls.
I really do not see anything wrong on republish texts as long as a reference is published, respecting the limitations that may be involved sometimes, like on books, pictures, paintings and good music.
Sincerely, most of the text we can read and write is pretty much an amalgamation of many things we processed and brings nothing really new, despite our aspirations. It may be new for some, but surely not for all so, why be so narcissist and greed? It is not like they are publishing “War and Peace” on newspapers or web pages, for what matters.
I really hope to see, for real, i.e. while I am alive, a rebuild of copyright and patent laws to something really taking into account “what-is-really-new-or-unique”, and not what we have now.
Perhaps not in itself but the business model in this case relies on people not fighting back and it relies on the case not going to court. It is not about protecting anyone’s copyright, it’s about scaring people into paying settlements. In other words, it’s just an elaborate extortion scheme that owes it’s existance to flaws in the legal system.
This guy has no interest in saving the newspaper industry, quite the opposite. All he’s interested in is exploiting a failing industry for his own gain before the bottom falls out.
Look, there’s no way there’s a sustainable business plan here. He’s not suing big infringers, he’s suing *bloggers*. That is, people who can only afford to pay him very small amounts of money. So on one end Righthaven pays large amounts of money to newspapers for the copyrights and on the other end they’ll getting paid pittance from the infringers. Yes, I can really see that working out well. Recipe for failure.
Of course, none of this matters to Mr Gibson. He’ll get paid anyway and when the company finally die he’ll just move on to a greener pasture. Maybe chasing ambulances or something, I dunnno.
Edited 2010-09-07 06:28 UTC
Yeah, that’s a seriously mature comment.
Because copyright trolling is such a mature form of business model?
I’m sorry, but no matter how much I despise any kind of trolling, ending an otherwise informed article with a call to “go to hell” is immature, and not the kind of reporting I’d like to see on OSNews.
It’s a Dutch thing. We don’t sugar-coat. I’ve had many a run-in with foreigners about our directness. It’s made worse by the fact that I’m West-Frisian.
If something can go to hell, I’m not going to lie about it.
It’s not about sugar-coating, it is about the way you phrase things. Telling someone “to go to hell” or the like is, imho, immature, it’s name calling and not fit for serious journalism.
Well, I’m not a foreigner, and this isn’t about “directness”. It is about style.
I’ve never considered West-Frisians to be exceptionally rude, but if you say so. However, again, this is not about being direct, or about calling-them-like-you-see-them, it is about tone and style of wording.
“Reproduction of OSNews stories is permitted only with explicit authorization from OSNews. Reproductions must be properly credited.”
Thom, you are a fscking hypocrite for posting this “story” at all.
I do not support the infinite (or even lifetime) span copyright or patent, even though I’ve created stuff of great commercial value in both of those realms of IP. It’s interesting to note, just for the sake of going on the record, that most of the IP I’ve created that’s of known commercial value has been of the type of “work-for-hire” which is what the majority of the world population that creates anything of any real value tends to do: create it in the employ of someone else. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with this whatsoever on any side of the discussion, and such rights are bought and sold on a regular basis, as business tends to do that, even with OSS.
And yet, here you are, charging that someone defending their rights to control how their IP is copied, the IP that they make their living off of, is somehow “copyright trolling” when it clearly exceeds the realm of “fair use” which, admittedly, is a bit fuzzy, but not so fuzzy when you simply take the entirely of a work and reproduce it for gain without express permission. Wait, you actually write crap for a site that expects that anything copied in whole must FIRST have explicit authorization to do so?
I find it very odd: IIRC (perhaps not, you’ve written so much contradictory crap for so long) you defend OSS copyright owners the right to sue commercial/proprietary developers for using the code of someone against their express wishes as stated in the license that goes with the copyright notice: well, the funny thing of it all is, there’s no legal or moral difference between the owner of this copyright (oh, BTW, quite often OSS code is “work-for-hire” and not owned by a specific author, either!) on code and that of articles. Often, proprietary developers that may use existing OSS code do it for gain: how is a politician using an entire article, against the express rights and permissions granted, any different? Currency comes in many forms, and a sufficient understanding of how politics work shows that it is, indeed, for personal gain, usually directly or indirectly for money, and always for power: you can’t even argue the typical filesharing argument “But they don’t gain anything from it!” in such a case.
Unless you are truly that magnanimous as to create for the whole world (but I have to ask: what percentage of the world gives a crap?) to use your creations without anything beyond you expecting proper attribution, if you keep spouting off this crap, I pray that you can’t keep gainfully employed off of anything where you’re somehow involved in creating IP precisely because others do unto you as you’d do unto them, as that’d be poetic justice and karma all rolled into one.
Have we ever sued anyone for duplicating our stories (happens all the time)?
Have we ever denied anyone to reproduce our stories when asked (happens all the time)?
Do we have a hitman company scouring the web for infringements?
This is NOT about the newspaper defending their IP. This is about a company whose business model is to sue bloggers for infringing upon news stories that they HAVE NOT WRITTEN THEMSELVES. They just go out and buy up copyrights, and sue individuals with that. I find that despicable behaviour, and it illustrates just how fcuked up the system really is.
The fact that you consider our disclaimer on the same level as this company clearly shows you have no idea what you’re talking about, or that your unfounded hatred towards me has gotten the better of you.
Of course you could’ve just asked us how we handle matters like this, but instead, you chose to attack me, once again. Such a shame you went from fascinating guy in the Haiku community to major douche.
Edited 2010-09-07 08:09 UTC
I don’t quite understand what is going on here. Are those alleged violators linking to original stories, or copying and pasting text to their own articles. Or, maybe, typing the articles published on paper into web pages ?
Is it allowed to link to original story ? If it is why would someone republish something that is already on-line ? Why not just linking to it ? Legal or not, republishing an existing article looks pretty pointless to me…. Why would someone want to do it, unless she or he wants to make it appear as his/her own original work ?
Finally, if they shoot at EVERY ducks:
1. Nobody will be dare enough to cite their “customers” work.
2. Everybody will be angry at them.
On the long term, by acting without proper judgement, everybody will avoid their customers.
Good enough no ?