

How Righthaven is performing a public good - grellas
http://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2011/04/republishing_en.htm

======
alanfalcon
I definitely look forward to the day Righthaven shuts their doors, no matter
how much blog-friendly case law is being created by their ridiculous lawsuits.

------
quanticle
Rightshaven reminds me of the Demotivator: "It might be that your purpose in
life is solely to serve as a warning to others."

------
Natsu
Honestly, I would say that it's more the court hearing these that's performing
the public good by crushing Righthaven's cases.

But I'm still glad that they're expanding fair use, even if they were hoping
to do the opposite.

------
apz
Good coverage of this issue on this week's On the Media:
<http://www.onthemedia.org/transcripts/2011/04/22/02>

------
watchandwait
This piece misses a major part of the story-- the courts may be on the verge
of declaring that copyright was never actually transferred to Righthaven, and
that they have no right to sue in any of these cases.

[http://arstechnica.com/tech-
policy/news/2011/04/righthaven-r...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-
policy/news/2011/04/righthaven-reeling-secret-doc-could-doom-a-copyright-
troll.ars)

------
jws
In the tests the court used to decide fair use:

 _the defendants' use was transformative because Righthaven is a litigation-
driven business, the republication was to educate the defendants' audience,
and it had no substitutive effects_

Ouch! It would be hard to fail that test unless you went out suing people for
violating copyright trolls' copyrights.

It's also worth noting that the defendant published all 33 paragraphs of an
article and that was alright because it was not easily distilled or edited.

~~~
tzs
> It's also worth noting that the defendant published all 33 paragraphs of an
> article and that was alright because it was not easily distilled or edited.

I find it hard to believe that a 33 paragraph article contained so little
original expression that in order to copy the facts (which are not subject to
copyright) one would need to copy the entire article verbatim.

~~~
Natsu
From what I can see, they don't have skilled lawyers and have been writing
form-letter complaints. They also managed to piss off the judge who is hearing
all their complaints.

So, yeah. While in an ordinary case, the judge might be willing to just assume
things like commercial use or harm caused by someone copying the story,
they're going to have to establish that all by themselves. And it would appear
that they've failed to do anything of the sort so far.

I can't imagine that they'll make any money on this case.

