thearmedcitizen.com under attack ... please help

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Intellectual "property" is definitely on the short list of the most dumb ideas anyone has ever come up with. Maybe the first people that proposed it were joking and someone took it seriously.
"We'll be able to randomly declare ownership and sole use of completely intangible ideas, dreams, thoughts, methods. Then we'll be able to punish people for thinking of things that we declared that we thought of first"
"Yeah that'll be a great idea, what could go wrong?"
 
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http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/06/righthaven-legal-action/

David Kravets, "Bloggers Mull Legal Action Against Righthaven", Wired, June 15, 2011.

Clayton Cramer, operator of Armedcitizen.net, is seriously considering a next step, since a federal judge ruled that Righthaven had no legal standing to bring suit.


http://www.vegasinc.com/news/2011/jul/07/righthaven-faces-119000-legal-fee-demand/

Steve Green, "Righthaven faces $119,000 legal fee demand", Vegas Inc., 7 July 2011.

Attorneys for former federal prosecutor Thomas DiBiase prevailed in court against Righthaven; federal Judge Roger Hunt dismissed Righthaven’s suit for lack of standing. DiBiase's layers now demand that Righthaven pay $119,457 legal fees and costs.
 
Intellectual "property" is definitely on the short list of the most dumb ideas
Those of us who are engineers, artists, architects, musicians, poets need that protection.

Otherwise corporate buttheads rip us off badly.

Righthaven is abusing the concept out of greed, and must be stopped.

But that doesn't mean us honest folks don't need those protections.
 
What will be interesting is to see what happens with the folks who settled before the finding that Righthaven had no standing to sue in the first place. Will they get their money back, and lawyers fees? ( hopefully with punitive damages. )
 
Engineers, architects, musicians, etc. all have some tangible item they can present to anyone. Most engineers produce some kind of engineered plan, system, or design, as do architects. Musicians have the music they produce (although the sound of it being played could be suspect, I guess...). But their albums, artwork, and concerts should be safe. And any written items or plans produced by engineers/architects should also be protected. But I agree that the idea of "intellectual property" is a joke, as it doesn't necessarily require any written or manufactured item to copyright. However, the laws should NOT be abused, as Righthaven is doing. Someone needs to smack them around a bit, preferably a judge.
 
I don't want to get too far off topic with this, but the "tangible item they can present to anyone" is called the 'instrument of service' under the principles of intellectual property rights. It is not required to commit to instrument of service to have protection under the law. Those of us in those professions really need abstract protection. I know you guys are doing your best on that subject, but it's really not the purpose of this thread.

The purpose of this thread is to display the dangers of those who abuse due process to get money. That's what those buttheads are doing.
 
Most copyright holders who don't consider a reprint "fair use" send a takedown request.

Righthaven sent a threat: virtually saying: we will sue you for $75,000 and take your domain name, granny with a nonprofit bird blog, or if you pay a couple thou, we'll go away.

Righthaven was supposedly buying the copyright from Las Vegas Review-Journal, then suing as the new copyright holder. However, the "secret" agreement that was revealed in court showed that Stephens Media retained the rights to the news items, and all Righthaven had was a fictitious "right" to sue, and split the money with Stephens Media who retained the copyright. After the exposure, Righthaven and Stephens Media re-negotiated their agreement and claim that the corrected agreement fixes the problems raised by the judge. Following some of the postings at Wired.com and ArsTechnica.com, that new agreement also appears problematical.

Who knows, maybe we'll get a SCOTUS ruling on "fair use". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use So far though, some of the commentators on the cases Righthaven has lost, have stated that Righthaven by overreaching has actually undermined newspapers' protection against reprinting news or political opinion by commentators.
 
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http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/09/righthaven-on-life-support/
David Kravets, "Copyright Troll Righthaven Goes on Life Support", Wired, 7 Sep 2011,

o No new lawsuits filed in two months.
o Staff lay-offs at Righthaven.
o Losing cases on (a) fair use grounds and/or (b) lack of standing to sue.
o In one case lost by Righthaven, ordered to pay defendant's attorney fees and court costs of $34,045.50.
o Righthaven CEO Steve Gibson still makes public statements oblivious to "fair use" as opposed to "infringement". Guess he still believes there are "millions" of "infringements" he could collect on.
 
I hope Righthaven bites the dust and we see Steve Gibson standing on a corner with a sign, "Homeless. Will work for food."
 
If you look down at the bottom of The Armed Citizen home page, you will see a copyright notice and the phrase "All rights reserved." Apparently they think their original work is worthy of protection.

Copyrights and patents allow creators to enjoy the fruits of their labors. They do the work and they are entitled to be paid for it, just as anyone who performs any other job should be compensated.

Trademarks identify particular goods or services. Federal law requires the holder of a trademark to "vigorously defend" it from unauthorized use. Failure to defend the mark, at the owner's expense, can lead to losing it. I don't know how many millions of dollars Kimberly-Clark has spent defending the trademark "Kleenex" to keep it from becoming a generic term for facial tissue, thus losing the exclusive use of the word. It's the same with Xerox.

As far as taxation goes, copyright and patent holders pay taxes on the income they receive from people buying the works or products they created. Trademark holders pay tax on the profits they make from selling the trademarked goods or services. Some owners of popular trademarks also pay taxes on the licensing income they receive.

Righthaven is a predator and I am delighted to see they got smacked down, as they richly deserved to be. But Righthaven's transgressions are no excuse to dismiss the rights of other people in the works they create.
 
Intellectual "property" is definitely on the short list of the most dumb ideas anyone has ever come up with. Maybe the first people that proposed it were joking and someone took it seriously.
"We'll be able to randomly declare ownership and sole use of completely intangible ideas, dreams, thoughts, methods. Then we'll be able to punish people for thinking of things that we declared that we thought of first"
"Yeah that'll be a great idea, what could go wrong?"

Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the United States Constitution allows the government: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."

Yup, the guys who wrote the Constitution were a bunch of real clowns; more fun than a barrel of monkeys. You never knew what they were going to do next.
 
Truthfully, if intellectual property is so valuable (Copyrights, patents, trademarks) why are they not being taxed as property owned by the corporation anyway? Tax them at the value the lawyers claim they are worth, and that would settle the deficit!
Who says it isn't taxed? Let's say I have an idea for a better mousetrap. I patent the idea but I don't have the resources to bring my idea to the marketplace, so I shop it around to some companies that do. Acme, Inc. decides that my "better mousetrap" is worth producing. Acme, Inc. pays me a royalty to use my idea, and I pay income taxes on the patent royalty.

In this case the marketplace set the patent value.
 
why is the latest news on the website from febuary? I didnt read entire thread and only check out website for a moment, so maybe there is a reason.
 
Not only is it ridiculous to file copyright charges against an academic site, it holds no legal grounds. Fair use is intended almost specifically for academic purposes, or at least they come first, and are easiest to defend.

Someone's just out for some quick, easy cash. Similar to the Hurt Locker lawsuits, or the porn lawyers who are putting their own content on torrent sites, and suing the IP of every person who downloads it. Scumbags looking for easy money.
 
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Auction of Righthaven website domain name under way
The online auction of the righthaven.com website domain name got under way Monday, with bidders having until Jan. 6 to submit offers.

A judge has authorized a receiver to auction the intellectual property of Las Vegas-based Righthaven LLC, the newspaper copyright infringement lawsuit filer...

...Wayne Hoehn, and his attorneys defeated Righthaven when a judge threw out Righthaven’s lawsuit against him over Hoehn’s unauthorized post on a sports betting website message board of a Las Vegas Review-Journal column by columnist and former Publisher Sherman Frederick.

...

“Righthaven went after hundreds of defendants in copyright cases. Often, the defendants were innocent and engaged in fair use. In all cases where a court has been asked, they found that Righthaven had no right to bring the suit in the first place. In all of their cases, Righthaven asked the court to award them not only money, but the defendant’s domain name,” Randazza noted in a blog post. “After losing a case to my client, Wayne Hoehn, Righthaven is at least $63,000 in debt to him. They refuse to pay. Now their domain name is up for auction to the highest bidder.”
 
As a UK resident where copyright abuse seems rampant, I must say that I was very impressed to see the spirited defence of the copyright & patent system in this thread.

I suppose in the US you live & die by the efforts of your hands & brains whilst in Europe the State will give even the laziest weasel a free house, free medicine and free money ... for ever.

This leads to the attitude "Music and films are free on the Web."
 
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