The federal district court in Nevada has issued a declaratory judgment that makes is harder for copyright holders to file lawsuits over excerpts of material and burden online forums and their users with nuisance lawsuits. The judgment -- part of the lawsuit avalanche started by copyright troll Righthaven -- found that Democratic Underground did not infringe the copyright in a Las Vegas Review-Journal newspaper article when a user of the online political forum posted a five-sentence excerpt with a link back to the newspaper's website.Please click the underlined headline link (above) if you'd like to read the entire article.
What I really hate about this is the overall climate and those portions of existing laws that almost encourages publishers of all forms of media and attorneys to work together in similar efforts to threaten ordinary consumers in blatant attempts to recover outrageous fees for minor violations or in some cases, no violation at all. I guess the prospect of "money for nothin'" lured the Stephen Media folks into this mess, but such cases of deliberate fraud can only increase the disrespect for the law and give consumers a false sense of justification to disregard copyright law entirely.
This is another case where the press and other media companies have failed their readers or viewers and the public at large. Such copyright (and patent) trolls are another reason I renew my EFF membership each and every year!
