Newspapers suing bloggers

Box Turtle Bulletin notes a new money raising scheme by some newspaper chains - suing bloggers:


Newspaper chains, in particular, have struggled mightily with this changing environment, and not altogether successfully. Some journalists have come to view bloggers as parasites. They say bloggers wouldn’t exist without the reporting done at newspapers.
....
As I said, copyright laws — or more specifically, copyright lawsuits — are serious business. And now, three newspaper chains have discovered that filing copyright lawsuits can become yet another profit center. The problem is, their definition of copyright infringement not only contradicts copyright law, but also poses a serious threat to bloggers and other online outlets everywhere.

Box Turtle Bulletin takes copyright seriously but has decided not to use the sources who are currently suing bloggers. What will you as a blogger do?

We at Episcopal Café use the standard of citing a few paragraphs or small percentage of a source. We encourage you to read the actual story before commenting from our summary.

Posted by Ann Fontaine on May 3, 2011 6:00 PM | |
Comments (2)

I try to respect the rule of fair use, but I expect that I don't always succeed. I copied Jim Burroway's list, and I won't quote from the newspapers. Not to issue a take-down order first is dirty pool in my book.

June Butler

Posted by GrandmèreMimi [TypeKey Profile Page] | May 3, 2011 7:39 PM

What June said.

Righthaven has been filing the suits in Nevada--and I understand that means the suit has to be contested there. Bloggers who don't live there are faced not only with the issue of having to find and pay for legal representation, but to fight a battle that would require them to travel to Nevada multiple times.

Courts should refuse to take these cases until the plaintiff can show that it issued a take-down notice and the blogger refused to ocmply. And the court should re-open all the cases that have been settled and return the settlement funds to the bloggers.

Posted by Paige Baker [TypeKey Profile Page] | May 4, 2011 2:49 PM

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