Last year, when former
Las Vegas Review-Journal publisher Sherman Frederick
wrote that
his company had "grubstaked" copyright enforcement outright Righthaven, he publicly urged other newspapers to join the new litigation initiative. At the time Righthaven had filed 22
copyright infringement lawsuits against bloggers, small publishers and nonprofits who allegedly reposted all or parts of
Review-Journal articles.
Since then, Righthaven has filed more
than 200 additional cases, but hasn't garnered many takers for its offer to represent other papers in copyright lawsuits. The most notable exception is The Denver Post, which has arranged
for Righthaven to file dozens of lawsuits regarding a photo of a pat-down at an airport. Two other potential clients -- WEHCO, which owns a group of papers that includes the Arkansas
Democrat-Gazette; and theSt. Louis Tribune -- have signaled that they might tap
Righthaven, but don't appear to have done so yet.
Meanwhile, recent moves by Righthaven have called into question whether it still aims to enlist other news organizations as clients.
Several weeks ago, Righthaven sued the big media company Citadel Broadcasting for allegedly running the now infamous pat-down photo. And this week, Righthaven hit theToronto Starwith an infringement lawsuit, also for allegedly publishing the now-infamous Denver Postpat-down photo.
For reasons that aren't yet clear, the
Starattributed that photo to the Associated Press, instead of The Denver
Post. The court filings seem to show that the Star ran the photo to accompany an AP story about the pat-downs.
Regardless, these lawsuits against media companies, presumably
filed without advance warning or requests that the material be removed, don't seem like the best strategy for winning over major publishers as clients.