The copyright slimebags have gone after Matt Drudge for using an allegedly copyrighted photo in the Drudge Report.
What I find especially remarkable about the lawsuit is their damage demand:
As the Wild West of online copyright enforcement very, very slowly sorts itself out, a group that seems to be trying to enforce — or, depending on your point of view, abuse — the rights of the Denver Post to a photo has filed suit against the Drudge Report.
Their remakable demands: “[D]amages of $150,000 as well as forfeiture to Righthaven of the drudgereport.com and drudgereportarchives.com website domain names.”
Drudge is a mighty big fish, and I hope he defends this aggressively, because the First Amendment is being systematically destroyed in the guise of upholding copyright law.
In the name of copyright enforcement, not only are blogs being sued, but web sites are being shut down by the government without any regard for due process.
So, I hope Drudge retaliates and sues Righthaven (for engaging in a conspiracy to violate his civil rights, along with RICO violations, and whatever), and that he ends up owning Righthaven.
The problem is, his insurance carrier will most likely take charge of the case and urge him to settle (which would only help enable the bastards).
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4 responses to “Copyright tyranny”
Righthaven is already on the ropes in another case, not just beaten, but beaten and maybe about to pay the defense’s costs. This would be an auspicious time to pile on.
Hate to root for Drudge, though.
It ate my link to http://www.boingboing.net/2010/12/09/eff-wants-righthaven.html
And I thought my opinion of the Denver Post couldn’t be reduced any more. Guess I was wrong.
Humans will never be free as long as mass media exists.
Another approach is the pointlessness of copyright and intellectual property in the first place.
Empirically, it’s only a source of monopoly rents without any increase in creativity.
A nice argument by Michele Boldrin in a podcast linking off this page in econtalk.org
So repeal would be another avenue.