August 2010

Settlement reached after judge refuses to dismiss copyright suit

By Steve Green (contact)

Las Vegas copyright enforcement company Righthaven LLC won a legal victory in one of its lawsuits Tuesday when a federal judge refused to dismiss the suit…U.S. District Judge Philip Pro rejected a defendant’s argument that the case should be dismissed because Righthaven didn’t own the copyright to the story at the time of the alleged infringement…This was the first ruling on a contested dismissal motion by any of the federal judges assigned to the 107 Righthaven lawsuits filed in U.S. District Court for Nevada in Las Vegas since March. Click here to read the full story in the Las Vegas Sun.

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Are Righthaven Lawsuits Copyright Enforcement or Business Model? (Click here for Poynter Online andthe full story)

Posted by Adam Hochberg at 8:41 AM on Aug. 31, 2010

To put it mildly, Dean Mostofi is a minor player in the blogosphere. A self-employed loan auditor in Rockville, Md., Mostofi maintains a primitive website where he posts press releases and newspaper articles about the financial industry, the law and other things that interest him.

“I haven’t generated a dollar from it,” Mostofi said. “I get maybe twenty hits a day.”

Unfortunately for Mostofi, one of those hits came from a company called Righthaven, which was hired by a Nevada newspaper publisher to sniff out copyright violations on the Web.

Righthaven discovered that Mostofi had republished an article from the Las Vegas Review-Journal — a nine-paragraph news story about a Nevada Supreme Court decision. Claiming that the copyright infringement had caused “irreparable harm,” Righthaven surprised Mostofi with a lawsuit that seeks to shut down deanmostofi.com and demands unspecified monetary damages.

“It’s legal extortion,” said Mostofi, who fears he may be forced to pay a cash settlement to avoid the expense of a court fight. “They’re going after small bloggers who can’t afford representation.”

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Personal income increased $30.0 billion, or 0.2 percent, and disposable personal income (DPI) increased $17.6 billion, or 0.2 percent, in July, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

Personal consumption expenditures (PCE) increased $44.1 billion, or 0.4 percent. In June, personal income decreased $2.7 billion, or less than 0.1 percent, DPI decreased $0.2 billion, or less than 0.1 percent, and PCE decreased $4.0 billion, or less than 0.1 percent, based on revised estimates. Read the rest of this entry »

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Nevada Jobless Rate Actually Above 20 Percent Based On U.S. Bureau Of Labor Statistics Data
By Sean Whaley (Nevada News Bureau)

CARSON CITY – Nevada’s worst in the nation 14.3 percent unemployment rate for July does not even begin to tell the real story of the state’s dismal job situation, a state agency reported today.

The actual unemployment rate in Nevada through the second quarter of 2010 is 21.5 percent, according to data compiled by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The announced jobless rate reported over the same time frame was 13.1 percent, an 8.4 percentage point difference.

“The actual unemployment rate presents a more complete picture of what is currently occurring in the economy,” says the news release from the Nevada Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation (DETR). Read the rest of this entry »

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Personal income  increased $3.0 billion, or less than 0.1 percent, and disposable personal income (DPI) increased $5.1 billion, or less than 0.1 percent, in June, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

Personal consumption expenditures (PCE) decreased $2.9 billion, or less than 0.1 percent. In May, personal income increased $40.5 billion, or 0.3 percent, DPI increased $36.9 billion, or 0.3 percent, and PCE increased $8.6 billion, or 0.1 percent, based on revised estimates.

Real disposable income increased 0.2 percent in June, compared with an increase of 0.4 percent in May. Real PCE increased 0.1 percent, compared with an increase of 0.2 percent.

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