5 ms·

>The bad news: if such assignments are done as true assignments, the Righthaven model still works, or at least is not undone be a congenital defect that can't b

by cube13 16y ago

>The bad news: if such assignments are done as true assignments, the Righthaven model still works, or at least is not undone be a congenital defect that can't be overcome in future cases. I'm not sure if any media creator would ever sign away their rights to that level, though. If I understand this right(IANAL), for Righthaven to actually have a case, they would need some level of ownership of the work at hand. So they would need a right to distribute, perform, etc. the works that they're suing over. I can't imagine any of the copyright holders would be willing to sign over those rights, considering that the entire reason that they would enter into an agreement with Righthaven would be to sue other people for "violating" them...

russell_h 16y ago
This was my initial reaction as well, but I think that the works in question have very little real value. They seem to mostly be news articles and photographs, both of which are presumably created in large quantities by the newspapers. My guess is that the newspapers didn't really sign on to prevent people from using their works, they just saw a way to monetize something they already own and took it.
kragen 16y ago
> I'm not sure if any media creator would ever sign away their rights to that level, though. Plenty of them do. A particularly historically-significant example was when Seattle Computer Products sold the rights to MS-DOS to Microsoft, but it's something that happens every day.
- chc 16y ago
  I think "to that level" means "to the point where you give up all interests in your work just so somebody else can sue." Selling your rights is one thing; simply assigning them away to a troll with nothing to show for it is somewhat less common.
idonthack 16y ago
>I'm not sure if any media creator would ever sign away their rights to that level, though. Why not? The copyright holder doesn't have to sign over exclusive rights, they just have to give the organization the rights to license the work and collect royalties. This is precisely how copyright collectives like the RIAA and SoundExchange work. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_collective http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_collective

by cube13 16y ago

russell_h 16y ago

This was my initial reaction as well, but I think that the works in question have very little real value. They seem to mostly be news articles and photographs, both of which are presumably created in large quantities by the newspapers. My guess is that the newspapers didn't really sign on to prevent people from using their works, they just saw a way to monetize something they already own and took it.

kragen 16y ago

> I'm not sure if any media creator would ever sign away their rights to that level, though. Plenty of them do. A particularly historically-significant example was when Seattle Computer Products sold the rights to MS-DOS to Microsoft, but it's something that happens every day.

chc 16y ago
I think "to that level" means "to the point where you give up all interests in your work just so somebody else can sue." Selling your rights is one thing; simply assigning them away to a troll with nothing to show for it is somewhat less common.

idonthack 16y ago

>I'm not sure if any media creator would ever sign away their rights to that level, though. Why not? The copyright holder doesn't have to sign over exclusive rights, they just have to give the organization the rights to license the work and collect royalties. This is precisely how copyright collectives like the RIAA and SoundExchange work. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_collective http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_collective