Comments by user: kbingh
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Cendali has done extreme damage to herself for associating with Righthaven. Google Cendali and Righthaven follows. It will take a long time for her to wash these stains clean if it ever can be done.
Has anyone checked to see if the Gibsons haven't skipped the country?
This decision is noteworthy because the United States, particularly homeland security has been flexing its muscle on sites operated outside the United States and Judge Hicks has ruled that copyrights do not cover alleged infringements that occur outside the United States.
"The problem with the lawsuit, Hicks ruled, is that federal copyright and trademark law don't cover infringements that occur entirely outside the United States."
Another angle this case could have persued is the question of the copyrightability to statistical information. There have already been court decisions based on this such as using sports scores etc since they are fact based they have been ruled to be non copyrightable.
Were does Dale Cendali go to get her reputation back?
It would have been good if the Court of Appeals could have made a judgment so there would have been more of an iron clad precedent regarding the use of excerpts of new stories. At least there are some court cases now that bring things in the right direction as far as protecting participants and administrators of online forums and social networks from being threatened with lawsuits for simply posting an excerpt of the story that is at the topic of discussion. I do think this is much different than for instance a blog that scrapes entire news articles and re-posts them as in the case of auto-blogs.
As for the case with the non-profit. I think as far as Fair Use goes the main test should be whether or not re-posting harms the market for the work. In the case of auto-blogs it absolutely does but for a non-profit who may post something that is of a public interest and will not cause someone to not go the the source who otherwise would have then I think it gets more into to those fuzzy areas that an appeals court decision would have been good to provide some guidance.
boftx
These ruling will probably never be appealed because Righthaven does not have the money nor the standing to pursue them. What needs to happen is their needs to be a judgement against the RJ that the transfer gives the new owner the actual rights free and clear.
What is great is this judgment was not only against Righthaven but Stephens Media itself which means even if Righthaven is broke Stephens Media is now liable for attorneys fees and any other damages or sanctions that may apply.
So the company that conceived this scheme will finally pay the piper.
pdf of Judge Hunt's ruling:
This is great news and an absolute victory for free speech on the Internet. The ability to add excerpts of news reports has become an integral part of social media and a must in political discussions since the discussions generally revolve around some kind of news report or online source. This ruling will be a major precedent in protecting those involved in social media to discuss news stories without fear of being sued by another Righthaven.
Very few fair use cases have been decided because the draconian nature of copyright law made it too dangerous to risk a devastating and life altering judgement. Prior to Righthaven most settled even with strong fair use arguments but Righhaven's actions were so egregious that action had to be taken to stop them. Thank goodness for the EFF and some great lawyers including David Kerr of Colorado and Todd Kincannon of South Carolina who really stepped up and offered pro-bono defenses.
This is not likely to be appealed since Righthaven does not have the resources nor the standing to mount an appeal. This ruling will stand.
Righthaven will not be able to appeal making all prior rulings stand and setting precedence for years to come. Thanks Righthaven for expanding fair use and demonstrating that when copyright infringement cases actually reach a court room the cases fall apart particularly in cases where any real damage is minimal or non existent to the copyright holder which is exactly how it should be.
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So Gibson throws Mangano under the bus. Oh how sweet. For Mangano it may be time to return the favor.