Righthaven LLC is a company that buys the rights to newspaper articles and sues bloggers and website owners who quoted these articles for copyright infringement. Righthaven also demands the domain names be surrendered too. This concerns me both as an Internet lawyer and as an online entrepreneur.
The lawsuits are not an afterthought. It is Righthaven’s business model. The company’s purpose for existence is to find entrepreneurs like you and sue for alleged copyright violations.
In an instant, the choice is to (1) give up your website and pay thousands to settle a copyright infringement lawsuit filed in a federal district court in Las Vegas or (2) spend even more years of your life defending against the lawsuit hoping that you “win” in the end.
Like a giant sea monster attacking a ship with its tentacles, the law is being used/misused as a weapon to control and destroy Internet businesses.
Here are two more examples.
* Because of lawsuits and government investigations, Craigslist just took down an entire section of listings posted by users (not Craigslist itself).
* The Texas Attorney General is investigating Google right now for the “offense” of not ranking competitors high in search results.
At least the sea monster is fictional. These legal tentacles are very real and a danger to website owners because there are profits to be made and political power to be acquired by targeting online businesses and hurting them.
With the help of your Internet lawyer, put the right intellectual property and legal protections in place to reduce your risk. Let some other website owner get caught by the tentacles.
To your online success!
-Mike the Internet lawyer
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Hi Mike,
I bought your website legal forms. Does that offer any protection? How can we link to and report on news items without being exposed to such lawsuits?
Jonathan,
No website legal documents, whether generated by software or customized by your Internet lawyer, will protect you from the likes of Righthaven. The hyperlinking isn’t the issue. The company is going after website owners who reposted parts or all of newspaper articles for which the company has bought the rights from the from original publisher.
This is an issue that the courts are going to have to sort out. It arises because our copyright laws have not kept up with technology and, in many cases, those who publish content on the Web don’t make it clear what rights they’re reserving to the content.
Until the legal issues are resolved, even a “fair use” excerpt of some article Righthaven has bought the rights to is likely to put a website in its cross-hairs. When our copyright laws were passed, no one who voted for them envisioned a Righthaven coming along.
Best wishes,
-Mike
Hey Mike,
Thanks for your reply. Is it fair use to write a post about an article you read on a news website, talk about what it said, without quoting anything, if you make the point of adding to the content? Naturally, I do place a link to the news item I read.
I understand that if I designate a DMCA agent with the Copyright’s office that I can no longer be sued without a prior C&D letter. Is this true? In the legal forms I generated through your software, my ISP was designated as the Copyright agent, does that qualify? Don’t I need to register an agent through the copyright’s office?
I appreciate you writing about all of this. You’re doing a good deed for a lot of people.
Jonathan,
Although I appreciate your interest in complying with the law, for many reasons I’m not willing to provide specific legal advice on this blog. You’d want to schedule a 1:1 consult with your Internet attorney for that.
As for designating a copyright agent per the DMCA, be sure to check out http://www.copyright.gov/onlinesp/
Best wishes,
-Mike
Hi Mike,
I totally understand. I do have non-specific questions:
1. Is designating a copyright agent through the copyright main office worthwhile only for user generated websites such as forums, or open blogging platforms?
I control all the content on my site, so is this relevant for me?
2. Is it possible to designate a company rather than a person?
3. I’m not an American, can I still designate an agent even if he, she or it, are non-american?
Thanks,
Jonathan
Jonathan,
Unfortunately, the questions are specific enough to potentially create an attorney-client relationship if I happen to answer them. Because you’re not American, you probably are unaware of how easy it is to get sued as a lawyer by providing off-the-cuff legal advice to someone in a public forum (whether online or at a party). Hasn’t happened to me yet (knock on wood) but not willing to assume that risk by answering specific legal questions here.
Please read the copyright.gov link I posted in response to your prior comment. If you’ve got specific questions like this, you’re going to need to talk with your Internet lawyer.
Best wishes,
-Mike