Reader: Brian Hill may be sympathetic target of Righthaven lawsuit, but he did violate copyright

• Hey bob also I have one more image showing what I think of Righthavem. You can save it onto your computer if you wish :P http://satireart172.co.cc/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/righthavenevidence2.jpg It's all free of charge BobT1971USM oops I am angering the copyright gods.

• Hey BobT1971USM :P I got some evidence that defeats your weak argument from your ego. Also the link below is only for BobT1971USM but since I can't send him a PM I thought I put it out here to make fun of him. Go ahead bob take a look at the link to fine some exclusive evidence I only have for Brian's case. http://satireart172.co.cc/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/righthavenevidence.jpg

• Stella, very interesting information. We're going to make your post an upcoming Comment of the Day. Thanks for sharing it with us.

• Brian is my grandson, and I am very proud of him. His site (<a href="http://www.uswgo.com" rel="nofollow">www.uswgo.com</a>) was so professional looking that Righthaven decided to sue him too. This is not your normal copyright law suit. Learn about Righthaven. They are trying to take away our freedom of speech on the Internet using legal extortion. People with real talent who have enough money will try to get a copyright on their work. We respect copyright and copyright laws. In this case, a newspaper is asking everyone to share their photos and print them. After this photo is everywhere on the Internet, then Righthaven gets a copyright on what should be of interest to all USA citizens and even citizens from other countries (especially people who fly on planes). They see this photo on your website or blog THEN they get a copyright on this photo or news article (not their work). They don't tell you or warn you, they simply sue you in court, file the court papers on you for $150,000, then they try to settle with you for $6,000 and your domain (your website). They are cold and evil people when you talk to them, they don't mind breaking laws dealing with SSI checks that disabled need every penny of that money to survive. Righthaven wanted to garnish Brian's SSI check at $50.00 per month until the $6,000 was paid to avoid going to court.<br>

• Akabrutus, my name is Bob Thomas. I live in Lakewood. Feel free to drop by anytime. Could you post a link that is yours, since there is no such link to "Akabrutus," one word, Brian.

• There is no space in akabrutus. You will find me as one of the links on the first page. What about you. Do you have the courage to identify yourself?

• If your are "aka Brutus," short for "also known as Brutus," then you're one of three or four professional wrestlers, a bulldog up for adoption in Superior, Wisconsin, or this guy. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FN9TFct2A2s

• To be fair you need to have a "comment of the day" from a non-Righthaven apologist.

• http://www.google.com/#hl=en&sugexp=ldymls&xhr=t&q=akabrutus&cp=8&qe=YWthYnJ1dHVz&qesig=R1m2tclDeVaPje1Lw0K1xw&pkc=AFgZ2tn5szdkU-qptfzW53ygtlbLa1nu6VtwE1o90Cit1hiiC9eM9e2_5of278ENgGCkS4OqKi5XjIwzfnHGCJ7NnNhCR4C8vA&pf=p&sclient=psy&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=akabrutus&pbx=1&bav=on.1,or.&fp=6310ac461fb3c07d 11,700 results and going through many of them refer to me.

• You are not looking very hard. I googled akabrutus and thousands of hits came up albiet they are not all me but there are entries in their that are me. I actually didn't intend to use that moniker anyway that is just the beginning of an email address.

• Type in Akabrutus and tell me how many hits you get. I got zero.

• I do not work for Righthaven or the Denver Post, and my opinions are solely my own. How much is Mr. Hill paying you? I am a small business owner who enjoys reading the paper. Thank you for your interest. I'm flattered you care.

• Sorry Bob but fair use is not up to the interpretation of the copyright holder. A publisher can include their interpretation and what they deem fair use but it is not legally binding. Fair use is what a consumer can do with copyrighted works without permission of the copyright holder. Commentary is specifically mentioned as fair use. One thing that will happen with this whole Righthaven saga is that fair use may finally get a fair hearing in the courts and guess what. So far courts that have heard Righthaven cases have taken a wide view of Fair Use. They may even rule that posting an entire article is fair use. Until courts give a more definitive view of fair use you cannot call someone a thief who follow their own honest interpretation of it.

• BobT1971USM, that is a highly specific username. Why when I do a Google search on that name I only come up with these comments to this particular post. Seems to me like you have created a specific user name for the sole purpose of being an instigator in this forum in hopes of intimidating or browbeating Brian into silence? Are you from Righthaven? If so this would be highly unethical to use a forum like this to try and sway public opinion. Either way I can see right through you.

• Look at the bright side (I never get to write that!). The Denver Post is paying lawyers to sue an autistic blogger who has no assets -- may their pursuit of such profit-building strategies speed them out of existence.

• Hey Everyone who reads these comments lets make the copyright fee $1 that should be enough even for poor old bloggers to afford copyright protection or abolish the copyright office with extreme scrutiny. Ban Copyright!

• @TS copyright doesn't work for poor folks only rich folks. If Brian tried to sue the Denver Post it may hardly work with the court. Poor folks are third class citizens to the court system.

• I see, not only do you not have a grip on copyright law, you don't have a grip on reality.

• "you are wrong if the Denver Post really owned the photo why wasn't it them suing Brian." because this is how media law works. I'm sorry you are in over your head here, but just because you don't understand the rules doesn't mean that there aren't any. you can justify it all you want, but if this was reversed and the Denver Post had taken Brian's photo without permission or compensation I can bet you'd be singing a different tune right now about the need for copyright protection of original material.

• Well then TS you better start arresting everybody on the Internet. Go Ahead and start with this site then head on down to bloggers and arrest them for violating the law. Every American is guilty! That is how tyranny and the police state begins. Watch endgame, the obama deception, invisible empire, and other documentaries. Intellectual Property is one of the ways the Bilderberg group will own and control the world. Intellectual Property is a scam.

• you are wrong if the Denver Post really owned the photo why wasn't it them suing Brian. Righthaven takes a life on it's on and sues people themselves. They have no clients, only partnerships with almost every newspaper in America then when any photo or story gets too popular they sue based on that because it's profitable to people at Righthaven. I heard that he sent a apology to the Denver Post to their legal department and that he took down the photo and they ignored his email request to dismiss the case.

• that is a transferal of copyright ownership. that doesn't mean that nobody owned the copyright up until that point. again, the picture was owned by someone other than Brian -- but Brian used the picture anyway without any permission or compensation. a basic, community-college level course would teach you all of this in a few weeks, AJFan.

• The article poster here can research the copyright registration number VA0001751279 http://cocatalog.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?Search_Arg=VA0001751279&Search_Code=REGS&PID=Pf5D49HrCWxmglY94euG3qEwN9c4&SEQ=20110216170000&CNT=25&HIST=1

• Read the uswgo court docket on scribd: On December 8, 2010, the United States Copyright Office (the “USCO”) granted Righthaven the registration to the Work, copyright registration number VA0001751279 (the “Registration”) and attached hereto as Exhibit 4 is evidence of the Registration in the form of a printout of the official USCO database record depicting the occurrence of the Registration. http://cocatalog.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?Search_Arg=VA0001751279&Search_Code=REGS&PID=Pf5D49HrCWxmglY94euG3qEwN9c4&SEQ=20110216170000&CNT=25&HIST=1 It was registered on December 8 2010 not around November. Research the copyright number at the copyright office.

• you don't have to register something at the copyright office to own the copyright on it, nor does it require a watermark or copyright symbol to be protected under US copyright law. You don't even have to publish something to own a copyright on it. In short, the minute that picture was taken by a DP photographer on DP time, DP owned the copyright to it. further: "The author of a work is the initial owner of the copyright in it, and may exploit the work himself or transfer some or all the rights conferred by the copyright to others.[18] The author generally is the person who conceives of the copyrightable expression and fixes it or causes it to be fixed in a tangible form. Exceptions and special cases in determining the author are: * Works for hire. If a work is made "for hire" within the meaning of the Copyright Act, the employer or commissioning party, who paid for the work and took the economic risk of it, is deemed the author for copyright purposes and is the initial owner of the copyright." Please, learn a little about a subject before spouting off like an expert, even if it is just from a site like Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_copyright_law

• Also if you work with George Soros, Barack Obama, Jay D. Rockefeller, or any other Bilderberg stooge then you will realize you are in the wrong side of the war for freedom and you will be considered a traitor to the highest extent of the law. Traitors aren't welcome in America!

• hey Bob! How much has Righthaven paid you to get your comments out. Please tell us how much money you are getting. Anybody who reads this trash will see your comment and want to know whether you work for Righthaven or that your getting paid a pretty good sum to post your comments!

• Three comments from people who seem to be working off the same incorrect talking points, that is interesting. Tygart, I don't believe for a New York second that you work at Fox News, because if you did you would realize "stenches" is not a verb, or even really a word, and that an "article" is what Michael Roberts wrote and a comment to that article is what I wrote, and by definition a comment is someone's personal and biased opinion. Why would Righthaven threaten me for giving my opinion, especially one that seems to favor them? Why would my boss, who is me, get money from Righthaven? Please share this amazing journalistic theory with me. It should be utterly fascinating. Also, slander is speaking, libel is writing. I wrote. One would think a Fox News employee would know the basic language of his profession. As for when the photo was copyrighted, I just looked that up on no less an authority than Westword's archive. The Post, according to Westword, issued notice on its website in early November that it intended to enforce its copyrights. Mr. Hill's use of the photo was in late November. The Post conveyed its copyright to Righthaven, a copyright on its material that dates back decades. Almost all newspapers and other publishers copyright their work, so, say, someone who does't want to spend money producing original content won't steal it and use it for free. Whether the photo is a symbol of a movement doesn't matter. Remember the "Hope" painting of Obama? Look up what happened to the artist. He was sued, successfully, by the Associated Press for copying their photo. As I said, good luck, Mr. Hill. I don't see anywhere on the Post website where it says to freely share content without attribution or permission. At the bottom of the home page it says all content is copyrighted, and just below that it says "Terms of Use." I clicked on that, and everything was explained pretty clearly. It says this about Fair Use. (Uh on, maybe Righthaven will sue me for copying and pasting this.) Fair Use The Denver Post has always taken copyright issues very seriously, both as a creator of content and as a user of other people's content. In fact, everything that appears in a typical edition of the newspaper is copyright protected. Nonetheless, our work is illegally reproduced everyday on websites across the country. The federal Copyright Act protects our right and our readers' rights to make fair use of copyrighted content. We have no issue with people who quote a small amount of a Post story so as to comment on it, perhaps even criticize us. That's the essence of free speech in a vigorous democracy. But fair use of our content restricts those who want to reference it to reproduce no more than a headline and up to a couple of paragraphs or a summary of the story. (We also request users provide a link to the entire work on our website). The fair use rule generally does not entitle users to display the whole story or photograph on their website. To do so is a violation of our copyright and we will use all legal remedies available to address these infringements. We understand people may want to share what they find interesting in our publication. This is a reminder that there is a right way to do it. Thanks for commenting everyone. This was fun. I honestly didn't know that much about this topic until I applied reason and did some reading on the Internet.

• Something stenches slander in this "comment of the day" article here. Whether people are sympathetic towards this young man or not newspapers should be about telling the truth, you know about bringing both sides of the issue and I don't see that in this article/ He did not violate the law according to the court docket posted on scribd because the grandfather clause and Fair use should come into play. When he posted the photo on the website it had no copyrights on it nor was it even registered with the copyright office at the time. So by assuming that this young kid violated copyright law without it even going to trial is slander and that comments of both negative and positive should have been added to this article post. I work at Fox News and know that newspapers should be fair and report both sides of the matter. By saying "but he did violate copyright" is reporting just one side. So did you get threatened by Righthaven or did your boss get free money to side with Righthaven??? God knows the answer to that question!

• Bobt2971USM your argument is as weak as Righthaven's case. For one thing Brian Hill posted this image well before Righthaven had even aquired the copyright to the Denver Post. The Denver Post on its own site invites people to share the content which gives this an implied licence. Their are courts that are hearing this argument right now and will be ruling on it soon so you can't call this stealing. Another thing is this image had become a symbol and rallying cry for those protesting TSA enhanced pat-downs. It had become the symbol of a political cause well before Righthaven obtained this photo. Brian as well as thousands of other people used this photo as a protest to the government thus making it a free speech issue. By attacking those who use this photo as the symbol that it has become Righthaven is using the courts to stifle the free speech of those who protest the government and thus using the government itself to violate the free speech guaranteed by the 1st Amendment.

• To start with, Mr. Hill did not steal anything at all. The Denver Post Newspaper is asking everyone on the Internet to share this photo and to copy it. This is not stealing. To blame someone like this without facts is so wrong. Righthaven got the copyright on this photo AFTER it was already shared by the Denver Post which was asking everyone to share it and to print it and still is. According to this newspaper article, you are saying that if someone files a claim in court, then you are automatically considered guilty. Is this the United States of America that we are talking about here? You have already convicted this person without knowing any of the FACTS!

TotalComments: 31