What a Difference a Year Makes
2011-04-17
Posted by: badanov
From the US federal courts in Las Vegas comes the news that the copyright lawsuit mill Righthaven may be functioning under an illegal contract and that contract has allowed lawsuits to be filed in behalf of Righthaven clients which may be defective as a result.
At issue in the contract is the ownership of rights. Under current law, copyrights can be transferred from one party to any other, but all the rights must be transferrred, not just the part that enables lawsuits.
Stephens Media didn't transfer anything except the right to sue, which is not allowed in federal court cases for obvious reasons.
At FFZ, I don't fair use anything and when I do it is a tiny fraction of the source article. It is a good practice and a safe one as well.
Where my Mexican drug war reporting takes place, Rantburg.com recently settled a Righthaven lawsuit. The owner, Fred Pruitt, didn't disclose a settlement amount but it was more than he had in the bank, and he had to go to his readers to get the cash.
You should follow the link in the title and read some other the other news concerning copyright enforcement to get a better flavor.
Newspapers are in trouble, deep trouble thanks to electronic media yet so far that have gotten the cause of their problems wrong every time.
When the Huffintgon Post sale went through an a number of bloggers and writers complained that its former owner, Ariana Huffington used them, and they demanded compensation.
When I went to Huffington Post to read what the writers were saying I saw how many of those who complained were formerly newspaper and print media people thrown out of work over the previous five years or so, and working on the hope their work will get picked up by someone.
But writing is like the NBA. Anyone can play basketball. Hell, everyone plays basketball, and even though thousands of colleges nationwide offer scholarships for good basketball players, which is a tiny percentage of all high school basketball players, which in turn is an even tinier percentage of all basketball players, only a tiny percentile of all basketball players ever make the big leagues. And even within that tiny minuscule subset, there's a large subset of NBA players who get one year on the bench and maybe another one in the development leagues before they are cut for good.
So it is with writing. I write Mexican drug war news for Rantburg. Have been doing it for almost a year now, and I love it. Some even say I am pretty good and have suggested I try to gain compensated writing gigs for outfits like Pajamas Media.
I don't, however, have many illusions (I do have some delusions) that my efforts on behalf of Rantburg will bring me into the big leagues. They won't.
But that is not the point. The point I do this because I enjoy it whether the money flows in or not, and I do get to make an impact at least in my tiny part of the world.
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