The targets are blogs and websites that repost articles written by the Las Vegas Review-Journal, and hundreds of lawsuits are already in the process. Those that don't settle could face higher legal costs by going to court.
Fred Bouzek, who runs bikernews.net, is one of those willing to settle, after one of the website's users posted a Las Vegas Review-Journal story. Under normal circumstances, the copyright owners would file a DMCA takedown request, and in most cases, the offending article would be removed. However, it appears newspapers owners are finding that suing for money is much more profitable.
Bill Irvine, owner of AboveTopSecret.com, is not settling though, as he feels the DMCA's safe harbor provisions provide protection for websites if the offending content is user generated, as long as the website has clear, enforced rules in regards to posting copyrighted content. Irvine is challenging the lawsuit, and he has a good chance at victory if the judge feels the precedents set by the Viacom/YouTube, Universal/Veoh lawsuits, both of which were successfully defended by the user-generated websites in question, are just as valid when it comes to written media.
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