Be careful quoting NWAonline.com – You might be sued | CF
Clipped Fresh — By Christopher Spencer on September 29, 2010 at 12:15 amAfter bragging about his attempts to shut down copyright violaters, Stephens Media’s Sherman Frederick has been coutersued Monday and, in a sense, so has your local newspaper for allegedly bullying websites that excerpt from their stories.
The corporate knot takes a moment to explain, but let’s see if we can do it.
Practically all of the daily newspapers in Northwest Arkansas – including the Northwest Arkansas Times – are owned by Northwest Arkansas Newspapers LLC. Stephens Media and Wehco Media share ownership of Northwest Arkansas Newspapers since a merger late last year.
Stephens Media owns the Las Vegas Review Journal and has created a vicious copyright hound called Righthaven LLC to seek out and destroy instances of its stories appearing elsewhere online.
Last month, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette also became a Righthaven customer.
Now, the Review-Journal is being countersued by the Democratic Underground LLC with help from the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Righthaven sued the the Democratic Underground over the posting of a four paragraphs of a 34-paragraph story by a user on the group’s message board.
Typically, Righthaven demands an outrageous sum of money and then settles for a fraction after scaring the mostly small-time website owners.
This time, the Democratic Underground did not fold and got help from the Electronic Frontier Foundation to bankroll the pushback against Righthaven and Stephen’s Media.
Righthaven has filed 141 suits against defendants in the United States and Canada.
A quote from the article:
“This case is a particularly abusive instance of a broad and aggressive strategy by Stephens Media, working in conjunction with its ‘little friend’ Righthaven as its front and sham representative, to seek windfall recoveries of statutory damages and to exact nuisance settlements by challenging a fair use of an excerpt of an article that Stephens Media makes freely available on the Internet, and which it encourages its users to ‘Share & Save’ at least 19 different ways,” the EFF attorneys wrote in their counterclaim.
So maybe you should exercise a little caution when using this share bar from an NWAonline.com article.*
Might be a trap.
UPDATES:
* = Meant for hyperbole purposes. There is no record of Righthaven or Stephens Media suing someone for using the sharing tools provided on the site.
[Disclosure: I am a former employee of Stephen's Media who was laid off in April 2009.]
See our ongoing coverage: Righthaven, Stephens Media
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12 Comments
“So maybe you should exercise a little caution when using this share bar from an NWAonline.com article.”
That’s a stretch, Christopher. We wouldn’t add a feature to the site so we could maliciously sue a user for sharing great content. The goal of any publisher is to protect the rights of their content. You are just the same.
http://img.skitch.com/20100929-rjsxn5xcex14yx8i5anfhe4pe5.jpg
Jon Schleuss
Online Editor
NWAonline
First, Jon, I appreciate that you would come here to provide some perspective on this. You have full forum and latitude to do so.
However, there’s a major difference between telling someone to take down content that is owned by you (Something we’ve actually not done at Ozarks Unbound – though excerpts and even photos are sometimes taken) and filing lawsuits for thousands of dollars in court to intimidate small website owners and club websites into settling for a fraction of the cost as a business plan.
That’s what Righthaven (via Stephen’s Media) does. It’s been shown over and over.
As part of their countersuit, the Electronic Frontier Foundation notes that the Las Vegas Review Journal makes available “Share and Save” functions and yet goes after those who excerpt as few as four paragraphs from a story.
The share bar might be an encouraged feature now, but a single missive from the right person in Las Vegas or Little Rock might completely end or alter that bar’s purpose.
Newspapers using litigation as a revenue stream. Interesting.
I’ve followed this story to some degree and find it interesting. It makes me wonder if the rules for some groups have changed. When I was at the BCDR, for example, we allowed the school districts to post my full stories on their website AS LONG AS they said that it was “with permission” and had my name, the publication name, the publication date and the headline.
Are they still allowed to do that and if not, were they warned of the change? Not asking for an answer from Jon, just voicing a thought.
@Jamie A group has to get permission from the company, but if they do it should be fine. Obviously it’s wise to disclose that permission. I’m not familiar with the school district relationships, but I assume they’ve contacted the editor or publisher over that content.
@Christopher Electronic Frontier Foundation has a poor argument on that point. Sharing information is part of the web; hyperlinks among hyperlinks creating a vast web of connections. Our Facebook and Twitter buttons at most share a headline and lead for a story. Four paragraphs are obviously not the same as one.
We wouldn’t provide the functionality if there was a legal concern in doing so and scare tactics should be below you.
By providing share buttons we’re endorsing sharing our content on social networking sites. We can control the amount of content users share, just like anyone using these features. Further, these features credit OUR content back to the source…with a hyperlink.
The two issues simply aren’t related.
Jon, the agreement was before the merger. I don’t know what’s been done since then, but most people would not think to revisit that agreement unless they are told to do so.
@Jon, as far as I know, no one has ever been sued for simply using the Share bar. You are correct.
Electronic Frontier Foundation uses it to show that while Stephens Media encourages sharing of their stories, if you quote – in this case, four paragraphs – you could be sued.
I used some hyperbole in reference to the actual share bar mentioned at the end. I’m making a note on the story to make sure people know it was meant as hyperbole.
I’m also adding the disclaimer, as I have on all other Stephens Media stories that I was laid off in April 2009. I forgot to include that and I apologize.
I think Righthaven/Stephen Media’s intent is to have a chilling effect on free speech and discussion of information that comes from certain sources.
People need to know that tactic is being used and be ready for it when it comes to NWA.
I don’t think you’re going to read about it in the paper.
@Jamie – That exactly why I think it’s important to note the potential change in policy before it is implemented in NWA. Though, I doubt seriously anyone is going to sue a church.
It’s amazing how many website operators are unaware of how to avoid lawsuits from RightHaven. Most of the sites that are getting sued have one thing in common – they did not send a form to the U.S. copyright office to designate a registered agent for DMCA takedown notices.
It’s a relatively simple procedure, and it would have saved the owners of the sued websites a lot of money to simply do the registration.
More info here -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_Copyright_Infringement_Liability_Limitation_Act
http://www.copyright.gov/onlinesp/
If OzarksUnbound.com doesn’t have that registration, it is a sitting duck for a lawsuit over user-generated content. I could post some copyrighted material in this post right now, and the publisher could get sued, even though he wasn’t involved in my activity. So I suggest that the registration should get filed right away. Following the registration, the site would have a safe harbor against lawsuits, as long as the DMCA takedown procedure is followed.
It’s interesting that Stephens Media only got their OCILLA registration into the database in the past few days -
http://www.copyright.gov/onlinesp/agents/s/stepmedl.pdf
Why did their legal counsel Mark Hinueber wait so long to get that filed? Stephens Media could have gotten sued for user-generated content too. He did not get the registration filed until August 13th, 2010, and it was only scanned into the database on September 30th, four days ago.
Gosh, I’d better not read one of their newspapers or website. Wouldn’t want to get into trouble! LOL
Corpbob, methinks a lot of folks are taking that approach…