aray
05-11-2013, 04:17 AM
For those of you who might be unaware, a bottom-feeding troll legal group called Righthaven has made a business model of suing web site operators and even individual posters when they copy & past even a paragraph or two from many media outlets. With the heavy cost of litigation, most sites and posters have simply sent in a check to make the problem go away. It amounts to shakedown money. And many web sites (including many 2A sites) have revised their posting policy to allow absolutely no copyrighted material on their sites out of fear of lawsuits from Righthaven.
How many of you have copied an article or even just a couple of paragraphs from an online news source related to guns and reposted it here? You were vulnerable, and put kahrtalk at risk too.
I've mentioned this in the past, e.g.: http://www.kahrtalk.com/showthread.php?t=5581
Fortunately, Righthaven is all but dead now. Amazingly, and proving even a stopped clock is right twice a day, the nutty ninth circuit court of appeals has dealt them an almost certain fatal smack down:
Copyright troll Righthaven finally, completely dead - ARS Technica (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/05/copyright-troll-righthaven-finally-completely-dead/)
And the actual Ninth Circuit decision: Righthaven, LLC v. Hoehn (9th Cir. May 9, 2013) (http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2013/05/09/11-16751.pdf)
I would still exercise prudence and caution when reposting copyrighted material. It's always possible some other legal troll might try a new and different approach to this. But for now, at least this company who published nothing and did nothing other than collect protection money against itself, is gone, and "fair use" laws or common sense on small subsets of longer articles might once again be the order of the day.
How many of you have copied an article or even just a couple of paragraphs from an online news source related to guns and reposted it here? You were vulnerable, and put kahrtalk at risk too.
I've mentioned this in the past, e.g.: http://www.kahrtalk.com/showthread.php?t=5581
Fortunately, Righthaven is all but dead now. Amazingly, and proving even a stopped clock is right twice a day, the nutty ninth circuit court of appeals has dealt them an almost certain fatal smack down:
Copyright troll Righthaven finally, completely dead - ARS Technica (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/05/copyright-troll-righthaven-finally-completely-dead/)
And the actual Ninth Circuit decision: Righthaven, LLC v. Hoehn (9th Cir. May 9, 2013) (http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2013/05/09/11-16751.pdf)
I would still exercise prudence and caution when reposting copyrighted material. It's always possible some other legal troll might try a new and different approach to this. But for now, at least this company who published nothing and did nothing other than collect protection money against itself, is gone, and "fair use" laws or common sense on small subsets of longer articles might once again be the order of the day.