The Las Vegas Sun is reporting that Media News has inked a deal with Righthaven. Righthaven is a company that obtains exclusive rights from content organizations with the intention of bringing copyright infringement claims against all unauthorized uses of the organization's works. In the past Righthaven has targeted forums such as this one, and the posters responsible for the content. I have no affiliation with SportsTwo besides the posts I contribute, but this is a friendly reminder that, as a poster, you can find yourself personally embroiled in an infringement suit if you're not vigilant to ensure that your use of an article is consistent with the fair use doctrine.
A fair use doctrine defense is only good to those willing to spend the money on the legal defense costs. This is the scam that Righthaven is perpetrating.
You missed the point. They can sue us for using portions of any article, and we'd have to spend a LOT of money to defend that kind of lawsuit. Their objective is to make us settle for a lot more money than we want to, or they'll shut us down. So we're best off paraphrasing what the article says. For example, instead of quoting this article: http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/recap?gid=2010120604, you make an article or post: Boozer scores 29 in Bulls win over OKC By truebluefan Carlos Boozer seems back to his pre-injury form, scoring 29 points and grabbing 13 rebounds in a 99-90 victory over the Thunder. The Bulls led by 5 at half and then blew the game open in the 3rd quarter, outscoring the Thunder 29-18. Derrick Rose seemed content to defer to his teammates this game, dishing 9 assists and only scoring 11 points on 13 shots. Luol Deng brought his offensive game, scoring 19 points, and Kyle Korver came off the bench to add another 13 points. The game featured a match up of two great young point guards, Rose and Russell Westbrook. Westbrook had 15 points and 7 assists. The league's leading scorer, Kevin Durant, scored 29 in the losing effort. The win extended the Bulls' winning streak to 2 and gives then an 11-8 record, good for 1st place in the Central.
SST would know better if we could lift the quotes from the article, such as: “Our goal is to improve every game,” Boozer said. “We don’t look too far ahead.”
I am not tendering legal advice. But as a general statement, be aware of who you are quoting from. The AP is having a rough go with new national media outlets like ESPN, and are in the process of exploring new revenue options, one of which is apparently Righthaven. I would be more wary with quoting AP sources than those from other media outlets. DaBullz is correct in his assessment: facts (quotes), as a general proposition merit less copyright protection than other expression.
My assumption is that the quotes aren't exclusive to AP. There were probably a half dozen reporters standing there with notebooks in hand when he said that. On the other hand, I wasn't there with notebook in hand, so I didn't get the quote directly. Though it might be hard to prove I lifted it from an AP article vs. some other reporter's work.
There is a couple things at play in quotes: speeches are usually the work of the speaker, not the recorder; and factual events are not copyrightable subject matter, if you consider quotations a factual event. There is less chance of liability for copying quotations, for sure.
No The RSS feed somehow was posting new threads instead of into one dedicated thread. MikeDC's off for a bit and I'm hoping he can fix it when he gets back.
