Blogger Sues Blogger for Copyright Infringement: Nikki Finke's Deadline Hollywood vs The Hollywood Reporter

Nikki Finke reports on the comings and goings of the Hollywood biz at her blog, Deadline Hollywood, and I've read her for years -- she has been instrumental in making blogs more respectable as a legitimate news source.  Nikki Finke's background as a journalist - working at Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times and The New York Observer, in addition to having her writing appear in The New York Times, Vanity Fair, and The Washington Post means that she had top of the line journalistic credentials when she jumped over into the blogging arena. 

Nikki Finke's decision to become a blogger is important to all bloggers, and in doing so, she undoubtedly felt a lot of backlash from the traditional journalists who do not consider blogging to be respectable as a news source.  That's a rabbit trail topic - something to discuss in more depth on another day.

Point here is, I'm not the only one who admires her work, apparently.

Over the past few weeks (or maybe months), Finke has been posting about her battles with The Hollywood Reporter and her claims that her stuff has been popping up without authorization over at THR, which is another blog.  Today, I read on Reuters that Finke's filed suit:  "Deadline blogger sues The Hollywood Reporter." 

Among her claims (and by "her" I mean Finke as well as her parent company, both plaintiffs in the litigation), an allegation that source code was swiped from Deadline Hollywood.  That's plagarism, 21st Century style. 

Finke goes on: she's also alleging that there has been theft of "intellectual decisions" in what she follows in her blog posts.  As bloggers understand all too well, posts go up minute by minute (almost as fast as tweets) when there is a big story -- and deciding what to post and when is a big thing when you're publishing a blog.  Blogging will get more consideration and exposure as a venue for words, and news, and opinion, because of this lawsuit - if for no other reason than everyone's got to catch up with what exactly Nikki Finke is alleging is the harm that has been done and how it happened. 

Once again, Nikki Finke may be helping bloggers everywhere gain more respect for the medium - this time, not on the screen, but in the courtroom. 

blogs, copyright, nikki finke, deadline hollywood, blogging, journalism

TweetDeck Users, Third Party Apps: Did a Twitter War Start Today?

I spend lots of time counseling fellow lawyers on how to effectively and efficiently use Twitter - both for personal use and for professional business development.  Once they get going, they usually decide to flip from going directly to their Twitter page (http://www.twitter.com/)  to tweet, opting instead for more user-friendly sites that are not owned by Twitter ("third party apps"). 

The most popular of these is TweetDeck (at least, that's what I'm hearing). TweetDeck is cool.  TweetDeck also lets you do other things besides tweet -- you can connect with LinkedIn and Facebook from TweetDeck, too.  Handy for lots of folk.

However, there is news for all you TweetDeck lovers.  Appears that TweetDeck has been purchased by UberMedia, and Twitter isn't happy with UberMedia.

Twitter Has Thrown Down the Gauntlet Regarding Third Party Applications

Why?  For one thing, Twitter may not like the latest feature offered by TweetDeck: Deck.ly, which lets you post longer tweets.  Deck.ly gets you around that 140 character limit.  Which, some may argue takes away the very raison d'etre of tweeting - but hey.  It's here. 

You can all the details on today's post by Neal Wiser, "The End of the 140 Character Tweet and Its Repercussions." 

Other applications that may be impacted by Twitter's new warning include:  

1. HootSuite
2. Klout
3. Seesmic
4. SocialFlow

For more information on Twitter's relationship with third party apps, because it's not just TweetDeck we're talking about here, check out these recent articles too:

1. Wired Magazine,  "Twitter Clamps Down On Third-Party Clients," by Mark Brown.
2. PC Magazine, Twitter to Devs: No New Third-Party Apps," by Leslie Horn.
3. PC World, "Twitter to Third Party Clients: Drop Dead," by Harry McCracken, Technologizer.

What's Going On Here?

Personally, one big hitch for me in tweeting from my Twitter home page is its inability to allow me to easily shorten urls.  Time waster that Twitter should have solved long ago.  Maybe I wouldn't mind tweeting from Twitter itself if they made it as easy for me as other developers have done with their free apps. 

Apparently, Twitter is waking up to the competition doing a better job, sniffs some money to be made, and is trying to grab those profits.  Fine, let them duke it out. 

I'm not loyal to any third party app.  I will go with whomever provides me the best service -- which translates into FREE and FAST.  I'm not going to dedicate much time from my day to tweeting, and neither are my clients. 

Bottom line, compete.  Go for it.  However, Twitter better not mess with blocking what's already working for us. 

Profiting from Copyright Infringement - New Vegas Company Sues Bloggers After Buying Media Copyrights

Beware. A new company based in Las Vegas thinks it's found the mother lode in media copyrights and the protections provided by federal law under the Copyright Act.

And after testing out their business model in Las Vegas, suing bloggers and website owners for unauthorized cut and pasting of work found in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, they're aiming for bigger game. National game.

Righthaven, which has only been in existence since March 2010, is busy every day apparently, surfing the web to find blogs and web sites where their news media clients' writing has been published, without permission.

According to Free Republic, they're busy suing without any advance notice (the proverbial "cease and desist" notice) and they're suing nonprofits like Ecological Internet.

Fair use?

Remember my earlier post -- I've already opined that the traditional media is really, really, really trying to limit (and by limit, I mean destroy) the fair use doctrine because of the crushing financial blow print media has felt from online publication.  

And, even if fair use is a valid defense to the allegation of copyright infringement in a courtroom, these actions will force bloggers and web site owners to hire attorneys and undertake the legal expense of proving their innocence in a court of law. 

Which maybe they can and cannot do -- it may be cheaper to settle than to fight for right.  Another common defense tactic, force the plaintiff to spend itself into submission, but this time a basic right -- fair use -- is at stake. 

Scary stuff, folks.

Lawyer Writer News Flash: Fair Use Doctrine & Excerpts on the Web: What's the Rule Now?

The New York Times has a nice, lengthy article dealing with something that's important for bloggers and web writers everywhere: when is the "fair use" doctrine protection against a challenge that you've violated someone's rights by using excerpts from their column/magazine/newspaper/book/etc.?

Apparently, that standard 4-part test we've all relied upon for years now to determine "fair use" is being challenged by those who are upset about some things.

And by some things, of course, I mean advertising dollars.

This is a big deal and getting bigger, and you need to read this article.

Lawyer Writer News Flash: Facebook Claims Full Rights to Everything On Your Facebook Site

Apparently, Facebook has quietly changed its Terms of Service (actually, they did this back on Feb. 4th) and maybe you should know about this.

Unless the complaints carry enough power to change things, right now Facebook owns everything that you put on its site -- that's right, everything that you've placed on your personal facebook page -- and Facebook can distribute and use your stuff for anything that Facebook thinks is a good idea. For Facebook.

Given that there's lots of talk about Social Media these days, especially focusing upon the use of Twitter and Facebook by law firms, this is really big news.


riverScrap has a nice overview.

Lawyer Writer News Flash: J.K. Rowling wins copyright suit against the Harry Potter Lexicon

Here's the newstory: J.K. Rowling wins copyright claim - Yahoo! News

So, there won't be a print version of the Harry Potter Lexicon ... but what about the website (http://www.hp-lexicon.org/)?

Lawyer Writer News Flash: Freelance Writers' Settlement Screwed

The settlement has been nixed by the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in a 2-1 decision, and now the Freelance Writers case, which argued that that freelance contracts do not allow for electronic publication (online, in databases) unless it's specifically stated, is back in the frying pan.

It's a 2-year-old settlement, with around $20 million at issue, and a Who's Who of Publishers as defendants: Knight Ridder Inc., Reuters, West Publishing, etc.

There are several well-known plaintiffs, as well: EL Doctorow, Gerald Posner, the National Writers Union, the Authors' Guild, the American Society of Journalists & Authors, etc.

And the basis for this? Jurisdiction.

Yep. The appellate court has found that the district court lacked federal jurisdiction to approve the settlement in this copyright infringement case. (Well, two justices did -- the dissenting judge said he wouldn't nix this settlement on jurisdictional grounds.) The majority opinion:

"The overwhelming majority of claims within the certified class arise from the infringement of unregistered copyrights ....We have held, albeit outside the class-action context, that district courts lack statutory subject matter jurisdiction over infringement claims arising from unregistered copyrights."

Read the opinion here.

So what happens now? Well, I'm betting that the Freelance Writers' counsel request a full-court review of this 3-justice panel decision - which may or may not get granted. After that, the Supreme Court is the next step, procedurally - and while it's very difficult to get heard by the Highest of the High Courts, they did hear Tasini ....

Lawyer Writer News Flash: Indian Lawyer Outsourcing Co Owned By Americans

Over at Backstreet Lawyer this morning, I posted on Nikki Finke's reporting that several Hollywood Big Kahuna Companies are outsourcing their transactional legal needs over to an Indian company. Legal research, drafting contracts, things like that ....

I've included a link to an Indian blogger who's watching this Indian growth industry -- apparently, they're very excited about it.

Here's the thing that gets me: the Indian outsourcing company is owned by a Manhattan company that, in turn, is funded by Cisco Systems, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch and Barclay's Capital.

Wow.

I don't know how many lawyers are truly aware of this development -- we've heard of outsourcing, sure. It's mentioned in hushed tones. I don't know how many attorneys are aware that American companies are actually funding the outsourcing, though.