Faster than you can say Rule 11 violation, Righthaven LLC, the law firm responsible for bringing lawsuits against blogs and websites posting content or links to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, has added individual forum users to the growing list of litigants.

It is an interesting business model:

• Bring a suit against a blog using content, pictures, or even just linking to a newspaper article, all of which you bought the copyright to.
• Don’t send DMCA take-down requests.
• Bring suit in a district with one of the lowest filing fees in the country. Serve the blog or website owner.
• Try to settle for between $2,000 and $3,000. The blogger can’t afford to pay for a long trial, so a settlement seems likely.

That was the original business model, but the new Righthaven plan adds a step #5:

• Find links or content posted in an open web forum by individuals who come to the site to voice their opinions and views. Sue them too.

Tongue-in-cheek berating aside, while there exists a real problem with internet copyright infringement, these lawsuits are frivolous. While it varies on a case by case basis, news has always been treated as something important that should be afforded certain deference in fair use copyright law. I am not sure if Righthaven LLC is only targeting bloggers and individuals who link to entertainment portions of the newspaper, but I doubt that they are being so picky. The effect of these lawsuits being allowed to go further could be devastating. Blogs and forums are increasingly becoming the source for breaking (albeit not always trustworthy) news, and if bloggers feel they will be targeted for a costly lawsuit, they might not provide trending news, event updates, or commentary. There is an even larger first amendment issue when you start targeting individual forum posters as well.

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