I’m still digging through mounds of email (with a 2-bit shovel, I suppose) that I missed throughout my summer travels and vacations. I came upon this bit from early June when we were getting busy in Aspen, and even though it is old news, I don’t recall mentioning it on the show or in the blog.
At NORML, our few paid staffers work long days trying to educate the media, politicians, and public about the truth of cannabis. Unfortunately, a substantial amount of our time gets diverted to deal with things that have nothing to do with marijuana law reform. For example, do you know how many fake NORMLs there are on the web? On Facebook alone we’ve had to go after fake “Duluth NORML” and now fake “Lubbock NORML” and so many more (word to the wise: if they ain’t listed on http://norml.org/chapters, they ain’t officially NORML.) Then there are the people who steal the NORML logo and slap it on merchandise or even use it to name their headshop or music, completely oblivious to the legal concept of a “service mark”. These people steal away the time and effort, and importantly, the donations of our supporters, from our primary mission of legalizing marijuana.
The latest offender is Righthaven LLC, who sued NORML for copyright infringement for posting copyrighted articles from the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Never mind that what we posted were links from a newsfeed from another company, and that Righthaven, known for being conservative in political bias, had no such lawsuits to file against conservative blogs that had cribbed from the LVRJ. Rather than spend even more supporters money fighting them, back in June we settled the case.
The advocacy group National Organization for Reform of Marijuana Laws has settled a lawsuit brought by copyright enforcement outfit Righthaven by agreeing to pay $2,185.
“I really think NORML would have prevailed, but NORML’s mission is advocating for the reform of marijuana laws. NORML’s key mission is not standing up to copyright trolls,” said its attorney, Marc Randazza.
NORML’s offer of around $2,200 represented what the group believed was triple the amount of potential damages in the case. To arrive at that figure, the group examined its records and calculated that the links were clicked on a maximum of 247 times. NORML multiplied that by the $2.95 per article the paper charges for archived pieces, to arrive at a total potential damage figure of $728.
So Las Vegas NORMLizers, I think there’s a newspaper subscription you should be cancelling.
Las Vegas Review-Journal – You are dead to me!
Yeah This Cody Quirk is a jerk. Stealing others writings, claiming them as his own. He caused my friend a lot of money in court. This guy is a real sicko. He then spams the site and tried to hack websites he doesn’t like. He is a true Asswipe!
NO LOVE LOSS WITH THE REVIEW JOURNAL BUT SOME TIMES THE DEFENDANTS IN A COMMUNICATIONS CASE ARE JUST ASKING FOR IT (IPR AND UNETHICAL COMMENTATOR RENO POL CODY QUIRK) This is an enquiry e-mail via http://www.hrnvlaw.com/ from:
Citizens For A Better Veterans Home
1. BALLOT ACCESS NEWS
2. Don Lake, …….and Karma and Karma Says:
August 4th, 2010 at 4:09 pm
and some usually reliable Silver State sources.
Some of this is first hand information.
The majority is second hand or even third hand news!
As far back as REPUBLICAN official Astin Cassey founded THIRD Party News,
Constitution Party zealot Cody Quirk was notorious on printing stuff with out
his bi line?
3. Big deal, big scheal? Well yeah. Four decades ago the world’s most renown print
media campus and it’s J (ournalism) School told me that a lack of a bi line
proclaims loud and clear to the globe that the following verbiage was an
official endorsement!
This is not new news. It is not unknown to ‘edumacated’ or ‘with it’
individuals. It is also logical and common ‘scenically’!
4. I am the ‘bad guy’ as I have fought FOR YEARS to have Quirk and others ‘knock it
off’! Quirk especially continues the unethical, [and apparently illegal]
subterfuge.
I have labeled the ‘world’s oldest living eleven year old’ as an agent
provocateur FOR YEARS! Unsympathetic co-conspirators: Lib / Israel First
American Zionist Californian Bruce Cohen, Lib / vagabond petition master
‘paulie’ and Louisiana Lib / Constitution Party mole Trent Hill!
5. Along with Nevadian Cody Quirk, these folks
[a] knew of Quirk’s multi year abuse via both TPW and IPR, and did little or
nothing, often heaping abuse upon ‘moi’
[b] knew of [apparently] the strange, illogical jump of strings from the bi
lined ‘front page’ (a term I only know from being the former national editor of
the Deform Party *sarcasm* monthly print house organ) to resultant viewings.
[c] so even if a ‘front page’ [not my term and a 'computer term' that I (having
authored and taught various electronic communications) am not familiar with] has
a bi line the THOUSANDS of resulting viewing do not!
[d] Quirk is no longer [quite recently] associated with IPR
[e] with the possible exception of the dishonest, unethical sneakie, snide,
snarkie remarks on my person and associated organization(s) by some one
monikered ‘Don Lake’s Mom’
[f] that sainted lady died in the 20th Century
[g] told ya so, told ya so
Citizens For A Better Veterans Home, struggling to warn the public about the ongoing failure of veterans programs, not just more lethal, politicized, uncaring programs that create hack patronage jobs, spend taxes in constituent communities, while doing little or nothing for real veterans, their real families, with their real problems……
Major bummer. Sounds like y’all were within your rights to quote brief snippets in analysis and commentary, but obviously I don’t know all the details. It almost sounds like they sued you for merely linking to them; I could have sworn based on reading my Slashdot feed all those cases were all thrown out, with the simple logic, “if you don’t want others to link to it, then don’t put it on the Internet! Or put up password-protection in front of it.”
I subscribe to the Electronic Freedom Foundation feed and every so often I notice they are defending some small guy or group being unrighteously pummeled by jerks.
In case y’all haven’t heard of them I highly recommend checking them out.
But I agree with the general assessment, that some battles aren’t worth the effort and resources.
They sound like a law journal. Based on my reading over the years, it sounds to me that the medical field and the lawyers, and their journals are the biggest luddites with regard to opening things up and benefitting society. Kind of odd. Go Wikileaks!
The LVRJ is a stinking rag not fit to wipe my bottom with. Hope you enjoyed Vegas while you were here.