Media and Copyright Law News Roundup

Righthaven LLC, the holding company which has been obtaining the copyrights to Las Vegas Review-Journal articles and suing alleged infringers, just filed its fourteenth copyright infringement suit, this time against a sports betting website, for reprinting Review-Journal articles without permission.

Lawyers for the Associated Press argue in the National Law Journal that the holding in Barclays Capital Inc. v. Theflyonthewall.com, No. 06 Civ. 4908, 2010 WL 1005160 (S.D.N.Y. March 18, 2010), a recent case in which the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York held that news organizations have a duty to police against appropriation of their reporting in order to recover under the “hot news” theory of infringement, unwisely undermines newsgathering incentives.  (The “hot news” doctrine is a sort of cousin of copyright which allows gatherers of time-sensitive information to prevent competitors from free-riding on their labor.)

Wired reports that copyright lawsuits plunged nationwide in 2009, after the RIAA’s abandonment of its “sue ‘em all” litigation strategy, which it pursued from 2005 to 2008.