Two website operators were sued for copyright infringement Tuesday by Righthaven LLC, boosting Righthaven’s lawsuit total since March to at least 159.
Righthaven is the Las Vegas Review-Journal’s online copyright enforcement partner. It detects infringements, obtains copyrights to the stories at issue and then retroactively sues the alleged infringers.
One Righthaven suit was filed in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas against The Ad Network Inc., a Florida company, and Bob Drascal, both associated with the website www.celeb-gossips.info.
Material from a Sept. 12 Review-Journal item, “Week In Review: Top News,” was copied and displayed on the celeb-gossips.info website without authorization, the lawsuit alleges.
Drascal couldn’t be located for comment.
Another Righthaven lawsuit was filed in the same court against James Karban, whom Righthaven says is the registrant of the website www.thewebcredit.com.
A Sept. 10 Review-Journal review of a movie called “The Duel” was posted on Karban’s website without authorization, the lawsuit charges.
Karban also couldn’t be located for comment.
As usual, Righthaven seeks $150,000 in damages in each lawsuit, as well as forfeiture of the defendants’ website domain names.
Separately, a Canadian college sued last week by Righthaven has denied Righthaven’s allegations of copyright infringement.
“Our position from our legal counsel is that we did not infringe on the copyright as the material was posted strictly for teaching purposes under fair use,” Imperial Hotel Management College in Vancouver said in an e-mail to Righthaven attorneys. “However, to show our goodwill to Righthaven, we have voluntarily removed the material and consider the matter closed.”
The college was accused by Righthaven of violating its copyright by posting on a college website a Review-Journal story, photo and graphic about the Vdara “death ray.”
Separately, Righthaven reached confidential settlements with three additional defendants:
• Margaret Soltan
• P.O.W. Network
• Silver Matrix LLC