So-called patent trolls have gotten lots of press for buying up and enforcing patents, but there appears to be a new kind of group with a different intellectual property focus—the copyright troll.
A Las Vegas startup called Righthaven has purchased several copyrights to the Las Vegas Review-Journal and sued at least 86 website owners for copyright infringement, the Las Vegas Sun reports. The suits seek $75,000 in damages and forfeiture of the website domain names.
“When it comes to fighting copyright theft in the news industry—the piracy of stories, editorials, columns, photos and videos—there are watchdogs and there are attack dogs,” the Sun says. “The Las Vegas Review-Journal and its copyright enforcement partner, a Las Vegas startup called Righthaven LLC, are squarely in the attack-dog category.”
The story says Righthaven first trolls to find an infringement and then buys the copyright to the story. The next step is an infringement suit. Defendants include “mom-and-pop-type bloggers” such as the City Felines Blog and even the Democratic Party of Nevada, the Sun reports.
Review-Journal publisher Sherman Frederick has written on his blog that the idea is to “stop people from stealing our stuff” and Righthaven is protecting journalism.
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