Talk:Los Angeles Times v. Free Republic

how much to quote
I suggest that too much is being quoted from ancilliary material. To illustrate, I post here what I would keep of the complaint, rather than edit the original.

[edit]1 The original complaint

Complaint for Copyright Infringement. Case: Los Angeles Times v. Free Republic. Court: U.S. District Court, C.D.Cal., Case No. 98-7840 MMM(AJWx). Date filed: September 28, 1998. The original complaint alleged (among other arguments) that[2] : 15. The Infringing Website [Free Republic] consists of hundreds if not thousands of copyrighted articles from competing "name-brand" news sources, including, among others, the Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post. Articles from Plaintiffs' websites and other would-be competitors' websites are literally copied onto and posted on Defendants' website -- 17. For their own profit and advantage, Defendants [Free Republic] are misappropriating the non-transformed, copyrighted material in which each Plaintiff [Los Angeles Times, Washington Post et al] has invested heavily. Defendants' website relies on the copyrighted content of Plaintiffs' newspapers and websites to attract readers, and to subject those readers to Defendants' and others' advertising and promotional material. ... The petition for relief asked that the court: A. Declare that Defendants' unauthorized conduct violates Plaintiffs' rights under common law and the Federal Copyright Act; B. [and] enjoining Defendants... from copying and republishing any of Plaintiffs' copyrighted articles ... C. Ordering Defendants to account to Plaintiffs for all gains, ,,,, and since Defendants intentionally infringed plaintiffs' copyrights, for the maximum allowable statutory damages for each violation; ...

I might add "22.  Plaintiffs have no objection to Defendants discussing the content and ideas expressed in Plaintiffs' articles [or]... use of plain hypertext links to Plaintiffs' websites such that Defendants' users would have easy access to Plaintiffs' copyrighted articles. ...

Robinson characterized the ensuing court battle as: a life and death struggle with elements of the socialist propaganda machine, namely, the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post.
 * best reason to abridge -- there will be a lot more coming. I would be tempted to skip to the judgment. DGG 01:37, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

This will become a very long article
... if you choose to quote 317 words from every piece of paper filed by the Plaintiffs. Summarize, summarize, summarize. -- BryanFromPalatine 19:25, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

text from FR article
Because it has been a practice of Free Republic to allow and even encourage its users to copy and paste copyrighted news stories in their entirety to its discussion boards, Free Republic was sued by The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times for federal copyright infringement. . The case often cited in Cyberlaw is referred to as L.A. Times v. Free Republic. Many members viewed the lawsuit as a conspiracy by the "liberal media" to stifle the organization; founder Robinson referred to the suit as "a life and death struggle with elements of the socialist propaganda machine."[www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/707390/posts] Free Republic's defense claimed that the site was non-profit, argued Fair Use,  First Amendment, and that its use was 'transformative'. All these arguments were overuled and/or disallowed. The federal trial court judge ruled against Free Republic and awarded a summary judgment for $1,000,000 in damages to the two newspapers, plus attorney's fees. Free Republic announced their intent to appeal this decision to the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and filed a brief, but chose another avenue. In a negotiated settlement, The Los Angeles Times and Washington Post were granted a permanent injunction against Free Republic enjoing them from further copyright infringement. Free Republic removed all the full text articles and agreed to post a notice on their website describing the stipulations of the final judgement, and directed its members to cease posting copyrighted full text articles. Each paper was awarded a sum of $5,000, a significant reduction from the original award. Users now post excerpts from copyrighted articles (as allowed by fair use), and the site filters submissions against a watchlist of "banned" sources. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Fairness And Accuracy For All (talk • contribs) 07:07, 7 January 2007 (UTC).

Proposed merge
I'm proposing that this be merged with the Free Republic article. I see no real need for it to be a separate article unto itself. Jinxmchue 16:31, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I support merger. This issue is not really notable by itself, but certainly is noteable within the history of Free Republic.Dman727 07:17, 28 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Not notable? On the contrary, it is a leading case in Fair Use and cyber-piracy. IF the Free Republic article is deleted, as has been proposed, would your opinion change? Eschoir 03:57, 29 March 2007 (UTC)


 * No, not really. Well actually that would strengthen my opinion.  If Free Republic isnt notable enough for an article, than any cases  it is involved in would be even less so.  In any event Im not aware of anyone really trying to delete either article, but I do think that one article is sufficient to cover the material from both so a merger makes sense. Dman727 21:44, 29 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Walker Thomas Furniture is not worth an article, but Williams v. Walker-Thomas is a case that established that contracts otherwise valid may be uninforceable through unconscienability.  Its a seminal case and deserves an article if it hasn't got one. Eschoir 01:48, 30 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I still don't see this case as notable and i have no opinion on the furniture case. I support merging it with the Free Republic article. I wouldnt put either article for deletion mind you, just agreeing that one article makes more sense than two.Dman727 03:43, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Williams_v._Walker-Thomas_Furniture_Co.&action=edit Eschoir 01:53, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Free Republic is far more notable than the case. It makes more sense to merge the two than have separate articles. Incidentally, who the heck are you? Jinxmchue 06:15, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

I disagree with the proposed deletion.

First, it's not a question of whether the *litigants* are important, but a question of whether the *case* is important. The Board of Education of Topeka may be insignificant; but Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka is obviously one of the most important cases of the past century.

Second, this case is significant, because it's an important statement on fair use law.

Third, merger would seriously undercut the value of the information. As a legal academic, I'm interested in the case for the legal principles it involves, not because I particularly care about any of the litigants. Merger with the FR article makes little sense to me -- if this needs to be merged anywhere, then it should be merged with (copyright) fair use. However, I think it's an important enough case to stand as an article. (EDIT: added signature, which I had forgotten) Kaimipono 00:38, 14 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Oppose. This case is considered a minor landmark in fair use law. Key Court Case Summaries on Fair Use Copyright Management Center of Indiana University, LA Times v. Free Republic Tech Law Journal, Los Angeles Times, et al. v. Free Republic, et al. AOL Legal Department, Copyright Casebook Home Page: law.uh.edu, etc. etc. It's cited by people who have never otherwise heard of Free Republic. -Will Beback · † · 04:19, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

You've admitted that it's a "minor landmark" and I would add that fair use is a minor area of the law. Comparing it with Brown v. Board of Education is disingenuous because Brown is a major landmark in a major area of the law. The article should be merged with either the Free Republic article or the fair use article.


 * I repeat my opposition. The fact that it's not a "major landmark" is not grounds for deletion.  It's an important case in its area.  Wikipedia policy doesn't require major landmark status; policy on notability states that "Substantial coverage in reliable sources constitutes such objective evidence, as do published peer recognition and the other factors listed in the subject specific guidelines."


 * A quick Westlaw check (Keycite -> 54 U.S.P.Q.2d 1453 -> "Citing References") shows that 80 different secondary sources have cited this case in the past 7 years, including cites in the principal law reviews at Columbia, Stanford, William & Mary, Vanderbilt, B.C., and Illinois, as well as numerous other law reviews and other secondary sources. (Westlaw, like other legal databases, isn't open to the pubic.  But any law student or lawyer with Westlaw access can verify this result.)


 * That should establish conclusively that this case has been the subject of "published peer recognition" -- it has been discussed substantially in numerous articles published in major law journals. Keep it. Kaimipono 08:14, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
 * This case is notable as a significant case in Internet speech law. (Minor correction, though: Mere cites should not be used as an indicator of notability, since citation practices often require comprehensive cites or cites for minor points. You want to look to see whether the case was discussed rather than merely cited.) It needs to be substantially rewritten, though. Also, since this has been months, now, I am taking off the merger proposal on the front. --lquilter 14:49, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Cites
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Copyright Law s 14:5, Fair Use (2006)

Copyright Law s 8:4.1, Illustrative Purposes Set Out in Preamble to Section 107 (2006)

Corporate Counsel's Guide to Copyright Law s 1:51, s 1:51. Copyright laws and the Internet--Web sites--Preventing infringement of third-party content (2007) Corporate Counsel's Guide to Web Site Agreements s 2:10, s 2:10. Content of the web site--Preventing infringement of third-party content--Overview (2007)

Corp. Counsel Guide to IP: Patent, Copyright, TM, & TS s 8:51, s 8:51. Copyright laws and the Internet -- Web sites -- Preventing infringement of third-party content (2006)

Corporate Legal Departments App. A9, Appendix A9: Internet Law (2003)

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Internet Law and Practice s 12:17, s 12:17. Fair use (2006)

20A Minnesota Practice Series s 36.5, s 36.5. Copyright Law and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act -- Post DMCA case law analysis (2006)

50 N.J. Prac. Series s 33:5, s 33:5. Copyright Law and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act--Post DMCA case law analysis (2007).

63 Am. Jur. Proof of Facts 3d 1, Proof of Copyright Infringement By File Sharing (2007).

TO BLOG OR NOT TO BLOG?, 24-NOV Am. Bankr. Inst. J. 32, 32+ (2005).

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THE MISCHIEF OF COHEN V. COWLES MEDIA CO., 35 Ga. L. Rev. 1087, 1128+ (2001).

SHARING AND STEALING, 27 Hastings Comm. & Ent. L.J. 1, 50 (2004).

THE FIRST AMENDMENT AS A CHECK ON COPYRIGHT RIGHTS, 23 Hastings Comm. & Ent. L.J. 587, 605+ (2001).

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Eschoir 18:50, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Copyright Clause
"The website homepage stated:

"Any man, corporation or government entity who wants to challenge our right to discuss news accounts (copyrighted or not) of public policy issues or political events or of government corruption, etc., in our non-commercial, not-for-profit, public electronic townhall forum should first examine each and every word of the First Amendment above and then tell us which words they don't understand. -- Jim Robinson"

Maybe Mr. Robinson doesn't realize that the First Amendment doesn't trump Article I, Section 8, Clause 8. But I think Wikipedia should make mention of it after Mr. Robinson's statement.


 * Copyright law doesn't prohibit discussion of protected works. The problem with Free Republic was that they copied entire articles onto their site for those discussions. If Robinson's remarks have inspired comments in reliable 3rd-party sources then we might mention it, but otherwise it doesn't really seem relevant or significant.   Will Beback    talk    01:58, 19 September 2009 (UTC)