Righthaven defendant wins first lawsuit dismissal motion

[Newsjock]

Source: Las Vegas Sun

The Las Vegas Review-Journal online copyright infringement lawsuit campaign sustained a setback Tuesday when a judge granted a real estate agent's motion for dismissal, ruling his posting of part of a Review-Journal story on his website amounted to fair use under copyright law.

... U.S. District Judge Larry Hicks granted a motion to dismiss filed by an attorney for Las Vegas real estate agent Michael Nelson, who along with Realty One Group Inc. and a Realty One executive were sued by Righthaven after Nelson allegedly posted Review-Journal stories on his website.

... As to whether the online posting affected the potential market for the Review-Journal story, Hicks wrote: "Nelson’s use of the copyrighted material is likely to have little to no effect on the market for the copyrighted news article. Nelson’s copied portion of the work (story) did not contain the author’s commentary. As such, his use does not satisfy a reader’s desire to view and read the article in its entirety the author’s original commentary and thereby does not dilute the market for the copyrighted work. Additionally, Nelson directed readers of his blog to the full text of the work. Therefore, Nelson’s use supports a finding of fair use."

... But it's sure to attract the attention of defense attorneys -- for instance attorneys for the Electronic Frontier Foundation defending the Democratic Underground in a Righthaven case they have suggested is even weaker than the Nelson/Realty One case.

That's because the Democratic Underground case allegedly involved an even smaller portion of a Review-Journal story being copied -- and in that case the material allegedly was posted by a third-party message board user as opposed to being posted by the website owner or webmaster.

Read more: www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010/oct/20/righthaven-defendant-wins-first-lawsuit-dismissal-

---

The story also notes that Righthaven has reached a "confidential settlement" with Free Republic.

[Catshrink]

1. Please edit to 4 paragraphs of exerpted material

that's why Righthaven is suing DU!

[Hepburn]

2. The DU is mentioned in this article about Righthaven:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/10/01/righthaven_counter_suit/

[Zorro]

3. DU's EFF legal team are pretty sharp cookies

Righthaven's horseshit complaint and EFF/DU's answer and counterclaim makes interesting reading.

http://www.eff.org/cases/righthaven-v-democratic-underground

[Buns_of_Fire]

5. I Am Not A Lawyer, but...

I'm pretty sure I know what "abuse of process" is. And when you consider that Righthaven doesn't even bother getting the copyrights until AFTER they find potential victims for their scam, you start to think.

By the way the Law Dictionary mentions that barratry is a statutory crime in most states. I wonder if it's so in Nevada -- and if so, could Righthaven/LVRJ have bitten off a lot more than they could chew?

[mzmolly]

4. Good

news!