A new type of copyright lawyer has arrived on the intellectual property scene—not terribly good news for bloggers or online media outfits. Righthaven LLC CEO Steve Gibson is on the attack, beginning a campaign this past March against bloggers and website operators who post articles from the Las Vegas Review-Journal, his first client. Righthaven has acquired copyrights to the LVRJ content and is filing suit against these operators for copyright infringement. According to a Wired.com article, Righthaven plans to continue targeting bloggers who repost entire articles without permission by filing hundreds of lawsuits by the end of the year.
While there is clearly nothing improper about protecting intellectual property, some commentators are accusing Righthaven of “trolling,” a tactic known in patent law circles where a patent owner enforces its patents against an infringer, often in an aggressive manner, without any intention to actually market or develop the patented technology. In the case of Righthaven and LVRJ, lawsuits have been filed against bloggers with miniscule web traffic numbers, where the actual damages caused by the infringement are correspondingly minor. However, Righthaven uses the threat of statutory damages—which can range up to $150,000 per infringement—to scare the media outfit into settlement. For a blogger who receives notice of a lawsuit, often without first receiving a request to remove the infringing material, the prospect of a lengthy federal court battle is far too expensive. Righthaven apparently counts on such analysis to encourage quick, monetary settlement of these cases.
The “copyright trolling” trend being pioneered by Righthaven likely will expand before any material reform to copyright law occurs. Regardless of whether this type of use (or misuse) of copyright law is appropriate, Internet media companies and bloggers must ensure that any use of third-party content is either properly licensed or falls within the safe harbors provided by the copyright law prior to publication.