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Source:
http://bloglawblog.com/blog/?tag=righthaven
August 25, 2010

ALLEGED COPYCAT: Artie, a cat living in Boston, Mass., is the supposed author of a blog that has been sued for reposting a newspaper story about a bird sanctuary.

Purr-loined Story Gets Cat Blog Sued
Tuesday, June 8th, 2010 Blog
The Las Vegas Sun reports that its rival newspaper, the Las Vegas Review Journal, has partnered with a company called Righthaven LLC to sue bloggers and others for copyright infringement for reposting Review Journal stories, or portions of stories, on the web.
A total of 34 defendants have been sued in such suits, according to the Sun, the latest group of which includes Allegra and Emerson Wong of Boston, Mass., who have a noncommercial blog about cats: City Feline Blog, written from the perspective of a cat.
Righthaven, the plaintiff in the suits, apparently finds Review Journal stories reposted elsewhere on the web, acquires the copyrights from the Review Journal, and then files suit against the reposters.
The Sun reports that the complaints, filed in federal court in Las Vegas, have generally sought $75,000 in damages, and at least four of the lawsuits have been settled. The amount of the settlement for one of the lawsuits is known: NORML – the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws – agreed to pay $2,185 to have their action dismissed.
According to the Sun’s review of the court filing, the amount of $2,185 was arrived at by NORML by calculating the maximum amount of the Review Journal’s lost revenue – based on the reposted story’s visitors and the Review Journal’s news archive access fee, and then tripling that amount. The Sun pointed out that NORML’s attorneys’ fees to that point must have easily exceeded the settlement amount. I agree that seems likely.
The NORML filing included this observation: “If Righthaven does not accept this offer, Righthaven may become obligated to pay NORML’s costs incurred after the making of this offer[.]”
I’ll note that with statutory damages, it may well have been possible for the court to award a recovery for Righthaven far in excess of $2,185. Though such a sum might well have been highly unlikely. NORML’s tactic appears then to have been to offer a high nuisance value settlement and then transfer the risk for litigation costs to Righthaven for rejecting the offer and rolling the dice to try to obtain a higher dollar amount.
The Review Journal commented on the lawsuits in their own blog post from the publisher: “Copyright theft: We’re not taking it anymore.”
In a twist, the Las Vegas Sun has, themselves, reposted the bird sanctuary story by hosting a pdf of Exhibit 1 to the complaint against the Wongs.
We’ll be waiting to see if Righthaven takes the bait and sues the Sun.
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