Legal Niches

How to Save U.S. Newspapers: Sue

By james_fudge

Las Vegas-based Righthaven has been buying the copyrights of newspaper content for the sole purpose of suing blogs and websites that use articles without permission - his business model for this seems to be the tactics used by the RIAA against file sharers. CEO Steve Gibson says that he's already making money on his plan, though he doesn't offer any numbers.

Gibson's plan is to monetize news content by sifting through the internet looking for websites and blogs that are infringing on client newspaper articles and then suing them for damages. This model relies on harsh penalties from Copyright Act — up to $150,000 for a single infringement - and quick settlements. Since its formation in March of this year, Righthaven claims to have filed around 80 federal lawsuits against websites and bloggers who have allegedly re-posted articles from the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the company's first client. Read More

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Full post as published by GamePolitics.com on July 23, 2010 (boomark / email).