3 more copyright lawsuits filed over R-J ‘death ray’ illustration

By Steve Green

Saturday, Dec. 11, 2010 | 2:05 a.m.

Three more website operators were sued for alleged copyright infringement this week over the Las Vegas Review-Journal’s Sept. 25 Vdara hotel “death ray” illustration.

Lawsuits were filed in U.S. District Court for Nevada against the websites by the Review-Journal’s copyright enforcement partner, Righthaven LLC.

The latest suits bring to at least 184 the number of copyright infringement suits Righthaven has filed since March, initially over Review-Journal material and lately over material from the Denver Post.

At least seven suits over the Vdara death ray illustration have been filed by Righthaven, which detects online copyright infringements, obtains copyrights to the allegedly infringed material and then sues the alleged infringers.

The Vdara illustration at issue in the copyright infringement lawsuits shows how the sun’s rays are focused by the hotel building on the swimming pool area.

The latest death ray defendants, all accused of posting the illustration on their websites without authorization, are:

• Carl Burrell and an entity called Flick & Tea, both associated with the website flickandtea.com.

• Daniel Barham and an entity called Urban Neighbourhood, both associated with the website urbanneighbourhood.com.

• Keith Combs, alleged owner of the website blog.technet.com/b/keithcombs, which is called “Keith Comb’s Blahg.”

The defendants “did not seek permission, in any manner, to reproduce, display, or otherwise exploit the work (illustration),” Righthaven charges in the lawsuits.

As usual, Righthaven in each of the lawsuits demands $150,000 in damages and forfeiture of the defendants’ website domain names to Righthaven.

Messages for comment were left with the latest defendants.

Earlier lawsuits over the death ray illustration were filed against Associated Newspapers Ltd. in London, owner of the website dailymail.co.uk; Threeall Inc., Yen Lee and P. Ling, allegedly associated with the website simplegreenchoices.com; Leighton Law P.A., a law firm with offices in Miami and Orlando, and managing partner John Leighton; and Carbon Athletics LLC and Cody Faeth, allegedly associated with the website themorningwoodnews.com.

Righthaven, in the meantime, was the source of national news coverage Thursday and Friday after word surfaced that it had sued Drudge Report operator Matt Drudge, alleging copyright infringement over a Denver Post photo.

Stories appeared on the websites of Editor & Publisher, Techdirt, Wired, Politico and Forbes, as well as regional publications.

Politico’s Ben Smith found it “remarkable” that Righthaven would demand $150,000 in damages and forfeiture of the drudgereport.com website domain name.

According to published estimates, the Drudge Report could be worth $10 million or more.

“As the Wild West of online copyright enforcement very, very slowly sorts itself out, a group that seems to be trying to enforce — or, depending on your point of view, abuse — the rights of the Denver Post to a photo has filed suit against the Drudge Report,” Smith wrote.