Romantics say information wants to be free—the way the Sioux and the buffalo once were, before the west was tamed. But Steve Gibson has a different idea. A Las Vegas attorney, Gibson might as well wear a tin star. He’s a man with a cause—he means to bring law and order to the Internet.
Righthaven v. Angle was the 116th suit Righthaven has filed since March 13, and it’s filed at least eight since—the website righthavenlawsuits keeps a running tally. None of the cases has gone to court, but 29 have been settled, for generally paltry sums—the website estimates the average settlement has been about $4,000. No domain names have been surrendered. Gibson’s draconian demands are intended to command the defendants’ attention and put the fear of god in them. “Most of its suits,” writes Steve Green of the Las Vegas Sun, reporting on Righthaven’s offensive, “are against small mom ‘n pop-type special interest websites, bloggers and nonprofits.”
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No, says Gibson, it is not. Despite the “uncontrolled and chaotic copying” unleashed by the Internet, copyrighted writing doesn’t enter the public domain simply by being put online, he told me. “That’s just fundamentally not the way America works,” he said. “When reporters such as yourself and newspapers such as yourself spent time and energy to produce a story, that takes money, talent more often than not, and certainly energy—if your work is disrespected because someone happens to want to publish it on the Internet and people believe it becomes public domain, I don’t think that’s part of the American system as we’ve grown to develop it. Frankly, this notion that other people’s works are communal property is against the democratic respect for individual property that is part of our system.”
A more intriguing line is the one Gibson wants the courts not to draw. His suits aren’t distinguishing between sites such as Sharron Angle’s that post articles and sites such as Jan Klerks’s and Internet Brands’ that don’t police what the public posts to Righthaven’s satisfaction.
Easterbrook’s concern is public decency. Gibson’s is copyright violation. But they’re both after the same thing—an Internet hemmed in by laws, its proprietors obliged to stand vigil over their establishments and answer for whatever goes on there. Western movies like to call the process “bringin’ civilization.” v
