by Dyana Hepburn

Created on: September 23, 2010

The Las Vegas Review Journal and Righthaven have partnered to stop copyright infringement by websites that print the newspaper's stories in full without its permission.  Working with Righthaven, The Review Journal has a new business plan to bring litigation against internet bloggers, websites and e-zines which print their stories in full without giving credit to the newspaper, its writers, or linking back.

On Tuesday, September 20, 2010 KNPR, aired a discussion on its State of Nevada morning show at 9:00 am, hosted by Dave Becker.  Steve Friess, a journalist with the L.A. Times and blog owner of Vegashappenshere.com was his studio guest, also via telephone Professor Goldman of the University of California participated.  The subject of the discussion was the intense campaign being waged against copyright infringement by the Las Vegas Review Journal in Nevada.

The Las Vegas Review Journal and the Las Vegas Sun are the two circulation newspapers covering the local news in Las Vegas and printing the national news.  Originally two distinctly separate newspapers, as the readership shrank, they partnered so that the RJ became the morning newspaper and The Sun took over the evening coverage. 

The Review Journal, owned originally by Donrey Media, was taken over by Jack Stephens in 1993, who renamed it Stephens Media.   As with all newspapers now, even in the large cities and with a decades long history of publishing, the Las Vegas RJ has fallen on hard times.  Beginning in 2010 it has begun a new business plan aimed at litigating against copyright infringement.

It has partnered with Righthaven, owned by Steve Gibson, to find and pursue where articles originally written by newspaper writers specifically for the Review Journal have been reprinted online in their entirety without permission, without any attribution to the source, and or any linking back to the newspaper, the RJ, which was the originator of the content.

Righthaven is said to be backed by the RJ and its purpose is to look up plagiarized and stolen content spread across the internet.  This action has sparked a backlash of anger toward the newspaper with accusations of trolling for copyright infringement to monetize the finding of copyright infringements rather than as a just cause. 

Steve Becker, host, gave Steve Friess the Las Vegas blogger the bulk of the time to explain the ongoing controversy.  Professor Eric Goldman of the University of California

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