Copyright vs. campaign support

The Las Vegas Review-Journal, whose reporters are remarkably successful in keeping their reports fair in spite of editorials that are among the nation’s most extreme right wing, is facing an interesting decision.

The newspaper has licensed its copyrights to an outfit called Righthaven LLC, which has run wild suing various websites for copyright violations. Dozens of suits, against everything from a Boston cat blog to the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada, have been filed.

But not against Sharron Angle—not yet, anyway.

Angle has posted an R-J story in its entirety on her campaign site, exactly what got all those other outfits sued. But the R-J’s editorials and its publisher Sherman Frederick and editor Thomas Mitchell support Angle for the U.S. Senate, so all eyes are watching to see if there will be consistency in lawsuits.

“Will the R-J sue Sharron Angle?” asked a post by Las Vegas blogger Steve Friess. “The Angle campaign … posted 845 of the 1,651 words in Laura Myers’ Sunday story. That’s more than half of it. … The campaign posted the entirety of an Aug. 13 piece in the R-J about new poll results … and an Aug. 9 Glenn Cook column on the campaign … and an Aug. 6 editorial about the race …and on and on.”

At least one suit has been filed against a site that shares the views of the R-J’s editorial writers—FreeRepublic.com was sued and settled the case out of court. But a suit against Angle would hit closer to home.