Is This the Birth of the Copyright Troll? | Hacker News Reader

Is This the Birth of the Copyright Troll?

law.com

47 pointsthere47 comments

> "My hope," says Hinueber, "is we will raise awareness of copyright laws, ..."

Preach it brother, I sincerely hope that the general public becomes aware of current copyright law. Because if they learn about the extremely egregious, one-sided laws that have been payed for by copyright holders they might do something about it.

This was exactly my thought. Copyright holders might not like the results if it winds up codifying the way people currently feel about copyright law.

Of course, given how apathetic people are, it probably won't happen. I'm still amazed that the RIAA was allowed to get away with nationally sanctioned extortion.

How much of this would become a non-issue just by requiring the losing party to pay all costs? The way it stands now is really just blackmail. Sure you can spend $100,000 to defend against a frivolous claim or just $5,000 and everything goes away.

I have been in that exact situation. Probably the most frustrating thing I have ever been involved in.

I suppose you could counter-sue, but that's not very efficient.

Seems to me these people are all in the wrong. The way it's described in the article, these were people who reproduced whole articles on their website. Like it or not, this is contrary to current copyright law (and to add my opinion, as it should be). Even if they would've challenged the suit they would've lost. Standing up for your legal rights is not blackmail.

They were in the wrong, true, but a simple takedown request would have cleared that up if this was about copyright. The bone of contention is that this fellow has set up a company designed to buy up rights and pounce on violations for profit, regardless of whether the infringement was malicious and without notifying his victims that they were in the wrong. Most of the people he sued appeared simply ignorant of the law.

While he may be operating within the law, a world where relatively small mistakes result in four-figure lawsuits without any opportunity for making amends isn't one most people would enjoy.

Takedown requests are for companies like YouTube where content is illegally uploaded by a user. In this instance, the site owners clearly stole the intellectual property themselves. This is plagiarism, plain and simple, and the DMCA does not (and should not) protect it.

I may be biased because I'm a published author, but if it takes a guy like this to hammer plagiarists I'm all for it.

If you want to use someone else's writing, ask them for their permission and get it in writing. That's been the law and custom since time immemorial.

The article says many of the targets are discussion boards, probably where users posted the articles.

I love the quote at the end: “It’s like setting a hungry wild pig loose in a china shop to find a piece of bacon," Randazza said. "It’ll get the bacon, but it will destroy everything else in the process.”

I wonder if the reference to cannibalism is intentional :)

Anyone with a background in law know how easy it would be to automate copyright infringement suits? It seems like the logical endpoint of professional IP exploitation companies like this is an entity that identifies violations, files lawsuits, and settles them with a minimum of human intervention. Software already exists to detect copyright infringement and file takedown notices; it seems like automatic lawyering is the next logical step.

You're doing it wrong; the purpose of mass lawsuits is to create business for lawyers.

After reading more about this, it sounds like they are going after sites who have not followed requirements to get safe harbor under the DMCA... specifically registering correct contact info with the US Copyright Office and clearly posting contact info on their site.

using a proprietary technology that he won't discuss

Er, google with quotes around key phrases?

That is the kind of guy that will end up with contempt of court jail time someday when he tries to lecture a judge.

I wonder what percentage of his lawsuits were actually fair use or could have been modified to meet the requirement.

"Many targets of the Righthaven lawsuits are political blogs and discussion boards, both liberal and conservative, which have posted content—nearly always entire articles—written by Review-Journal reporters."

I'd be curious to see the percentage as well, but those cases clearly aren't fair use.

"Only one thing is impossible for God: To find any sense in any copyright law on the planet."

--Mark Twain

"Only one thing is impossible for God: To find forgiveness for people who think other people's hard work and effort are their's to take"

This, at least, is backed up by the 10 commandments.

What are the requirements for a legally upholdable copyright? If I write a paragraph of random words and apply a Creative Commons license to it, can I require anyone who uses that sequence of random words to adhere by the CC license going forward? Is it more involved than that?

I think you have to register a copy with the Library of Congress before you can actually sue anyone, and can't collect damages for anything that happened before you registered.

In the UK at-least, there is an automatic copyright entitlement granted on anything you write / create which is deemed copyright under the limits set out in law.

"Copyright is an automatic right and arises whenever an individual or company creates a work. To qualify, a work should be regarded as original, and exhibit a degree of labour, skill or judgement.

Interpretation is related to the independent creation rather than the idea behind the creation. For example, your idea for a book would not itself be protected, but the actual content of a book you write would be. In other words, someone else is still entitled to write their own book around the same idea, provided they do not directly copy or adapt yours to do so.

Names, titles, short phrases and colours are not generally considered unique or substantial enough to be covered, but a creation, such as a logo, that combines these elements may be.

In short, work that expresses an idea may be protected, but not the idea behind it."

Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative Works License.

Yes, everything is automatically copyrighted. But there is some sort of enforcement action that you can only take after you register, I'm not entirely certain which one (suing in general, going for statutory damages, ...).

So my understanding is that it goes like

    1. create something, get automatic copyright
    2. someone infringes, you send a nasty letter
    3. go register with the government
    4. sue the infringer to make them stop or buy a license (assuming they ignored the letter)

    1. create something, get automatic copyright
    2. go register with the government
    3. someone infringes, you send a nasty letter
    4. sue the infringer to make them stop (or buy a license) *and pay damages* (assuming they ignored the letter)

where without automatic copyright it would go like

    1. create something, forget to file for copyright
    2. someone uses your work, you send a nasty letter
    3. that someone tells you to STFU

I hope someday we as a society can shift from the idea of "ownership" and "creation" to one of "contribution" and "discovery". Is anything really "invented", or rather pulled from the set of "things that can be"?

I also believe part of the original intent of original US copyright law was to promote progress by rewarding discoverers' contributions. To be in a state that we are now, where we are actually stunting discovery with ridiculous IP laws, is quite sad.

[Edit: Not sure the reason of the downvotes?]

Like someone already said, his software that he's gloating about is probably pretty simple. Crawling the web somehow. Any chance that the reverse could be automated? Write the same type of crawler that can let people know this guy will be coming and exactly how to modify their stuff so that they'll be just inside the "safe harbor" laws? Whatever those are?

Maybe just a pipe dream, but sounds like a fun way to spend a weekend, and such nerd heroics are the stuff that dreams are made of.

The Copyright Troll? No. It's old hat to ASCAP & BMI.

> Many targets of the Righthaven lawsuits are political blogs and discussion boards, both liberal and conservative, which have posted content—nearly always entire articles—written by Review-Journal reporters.

What's the problem there? If people are reproducing entire articles, they're clearly operating outside of fair use, and ought to be paying licensing fees.

Was the site just HN'd or article withdrawn? "Error getting pubarticle, Please call the system admin."

It works for me. Try again?

I, for one, welcome the copyright trolls. It can only quicken the complete reform of the copyright/patent system and the partial or complete destruction of the "intellectual property" industry.

Please clarify: are you saying you reject the concept of intellectual property, or just the industry that has grown up around enforcing intellectual property laws?

I can't speak for him, but I'd say the same thing he would, and answer your question with 'reject the concept of intellectual property.' AMA ;)

I reject the concept of "intellectual property" as unconstitutional. Read the copyright clause carefully, and read the letters of Thomas Jefferson on the issue in particular. There is no provision for treating ideas or expressions as property. Limited monopoly for the original artist or inventor was all that was being granted. Otherwise: Congress shall make no law -- meaning that if I tell you a joke, you should be able to repeat that joke without me coming to claim that you owe me money and potentially jail time because you "stole" something from me.

And do you accept/support a limited monopoly for the original artist or inventor? Presuming that you do, do you believe that that monopoly right is transferable?

And do you accept/support a limited monopoly for the original artist or inventor?

It's right there in black and white. I don't believe the constitution is infallible, but I do think the founders got this one right -- the way they intended it, anyway.

Presuming that you do, do you believe that that monopoly right is transferable?

No, for two reasons: 1- it's not actually permitted and doing so automatically creates "property" which the guys who actually wrote the copyright clause were completely against, and 2- it goes against the whole purpose of the copyright clause. See, the idea is that if you get a limited monopoly, you're more likely to keep inventing and creating. But Walt Disney is dead, and still Mickey Mouse is somehow off-limits. He's not a cartoon character -- he's the "property" of a mega-corp.

So basically, according to you there could be no legal security for large software firms in the software they license? Because all the employees retain their copyrights as original authors? So anytime you 'buy' (to use a colloquialism) Windows, you are effectively entering into an agreement with the 1000's of people who contributed to it over the years and if one of them decides that he no longer wishes to license his contribution to others, a replacement for that work needs to be made?

I suppose that's a good argument for open-source-style licensing. What you're describing fits Linux perfectly, and I don't think any driver author has tried to pull that. Also: authors are perfectly free to write up licenses that allow use until the copyright term is up.

Wrong. Recent (as in, this millennium) Linux kernel contributions require all submissions to be under an open source license. For GNU, the FSF has recommended since the beginning that the copyrights of all GNU contributions be assigned to the FSF. They have documents for download on their website and the whole shebang.

"Also: authors are perfectly free to write up licenses that allow use until the copyright term is up."

Well that negates the whole point of the non-transferability doesn't it. If people are allowed to license all rights they have to a third party, until the end of the term, then what's the difference with transferring the copyright outright?

I agree with you that the limited aspect of the monopoly has become watered down over the years, but I'm concerned that you appear to be suggesting that a corporation cannot have a limited monopoly (because that would require the transfer of the monopoly rights from a real entity to a legal entity).

Using The Constitution as justification for an opinion is roughly on par with using the Bible, The Koran, or Beowulf. This is a document that says that slavery is ok and a black man is worth exactly 60% of a white man (but gets 0% of his votes).

My main criticism of the American educational system is that it instills the sort of hero worship that makes otherwise intelligent people use a piece of paper written by people who believed in witches and didn't even know what an atom was as the basis of an argument about intellectual property in the digital era. I expect it from Sarah Palin, not from Hacker News.

On the other hand, we wouldn't get awesome satire like this without it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbRom1Rz8OA . NSFW.

For those of us in the US, the Constitution is the basis for the law of the land. To ignore it would be ridiculous.

Ad hominem attacks from somebody who such a strong admitted bias towards copyright just makes you look desperate. Many published writers have shown that they can get by without copyright.

The problem is not copyright, which, in and of itself, is fine. The problem is when copyright moves from a balance between the creator and society as a whole to being only favorable for the creator.

That point (which we are at, IMO) is the point the laws need to be shucked, and that will happen as a result of people ignoring the laws until government decides to make people legal again.

I wouldn't suggest ignoring it exactly. It's relevant when determining whether or not something is legal. It's just not relevant when determining whether or not something should be legal. It's a logical fallacy (called an appeal to authority).

I was not making any attack against the author personally, especially since I don't know anything about him. I also don't have a strong bias towards copyright. I believe that there has been a clear progression throughout history of protection from theft (of both the tangible and intangible) being followed by innovation and wealth creation, and therefore that the idea that copyrights as a class should be abolished is naive and shortsighted, but that's not really a bias toward copyrights as they exist currently.

I also believe that in any functioning copyright system, litigation will be the best (and for the most part, only) method of enforcement. And that the word "patent troll" is an ad hominem attack meant to discourage rather than encourage discussion about a complex topic typically used by people who don't even remotely understand it.

You never get coherent arguments like that from people who support the abolition of all IP. All you get are appeals to authority, name calling, and the occasional "Cory Doctorow makes his books free and still makes money."

there has been a clear progression throughout history of protection from theft

There is no provision in the constitution for the treatment of ideas as property, and the guys who wrote it explicitly disdained that idea. That isn't "appeal to authority" -- I'm merely pointing out that the document which is the foundation of our country forbids the laws we currently have. If you want intellectual property, amend the constitution.

the word "patent troll" is an ad hominem attack meant to discourage rather than encourage discussion

It's a description of a person/company that uses the patent/copyright system in ways that are against the very purpose of the laws that allow it: to encourage innovation and creativity. Patent and copyright trolls discourage it, and do nothing to improve artistic and innovative environments. "Troll" does not mean "ugly guy who lives under a bridge"; it's meant to indicate someone who trolls around looking for juicy litigation opportunities so he can cash in.

You never get coherent arguments like that from people who support the abolition of all IP

Never? I'd suggest you haven't read much, but how about this argument: it's illogical and unsustainable to pretend that ideas are physical objects. "Intellectual property" industries such as book publishing and music sales were actually about selling the physical media; the means to create such things were once scarce. Now that they're not, those business models must evolve or die.

You and I read the constitution very differently if you think it explicitly forbids copyrights. According to Wikipedia "the Intellectual Property Clause and the Progress Clause, empowers the United States Congress: '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.'" Regardless of what Jefferson may have thought, that's a pretty explicit promotion of the idea of intellectual property (with a vague notion of how long they should last for).

In fact this is exactly what I mean by no logical and coherent argument. A 12 year old could read that and tell you that the Constitution expressly promotes the idea of intellectual property, and gives Congress control over the details. He could also Google for some Supreme Court cases, such as Eldred v Ashcroft, that have upheld it's constitutionality. I'm assuming you're not unintelligent, which means the only way you could come up with "There is no provision in the constitution for the treatment of ideas as property, and the guys who wrote it explicitly disdained that idea." is if you either never actually read the very clause you cited, or if you simply saw what you wanted to see.

Also it's troll as in an internet troll. It had a negative connotation before it was applied in this context. Whatever the derivation, it's clearly derogatory and an ad hominem.

Writers don't write because they love the idea of selling paper. As one I can tell you I'm we're mostly OK with digital distribution. See the Author's Guild's controversial settlement with Google for evidence. But that doesn't mean we want other people able to sell or distribute our work without our permission or compensation. It's not about the media and it never was, media was just a necessary evil.

You and I read the constitution very differently if you think it explicitly forbids copyrights.

I wonder how carefully you're reading. I've cited the copyright clause several times and even paraphrased it. It does not "forbid" copyright. It creates it as a limited monopoly on a creative work.

the Constitution expressly promotes the idea of intellectual property

That's a big leap. It says, in short, that since they think that advancement of the sciences and arts is important, they will allow authors and inventors a limited monopoly on their work, in order to motivate them. Nothing there implies the creation of a pretend property, not does it promote such an idea. And if you read Jefferson, who wrote extensively on the subject, you'll see that he was completely against the idea of "property" consisting of ideas. Paraphrasing him from one of his letters: how can a man own something in another man's mind?

I am imagining the copyfree or copyleft entrepreneurs laughing manically now.

Less pirating mean less advertising for the pirated in questions. Make it easier for market disruption.

The enemy of GIMP is after all the pirated photoshop.

That's silly. If GIMP were a better product it wouldn't need to rely on a drop in piracy. "Free" is not sufficient for success.

It's still easier if you don't have to compete with pirated Photoshop.

Ah, but if pirated photoshop weren't an option, more people would be in the user pool, and thus more potential resources for people to get those last things they need.

(Well, ignoring exceptions like Pantone.)

What a scumbag. Screw that asshat.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com