Sherman’s “little friend”

When Las Vegas Review-Journal publisher Sherman Frederick assured his own readers yesterday that anyone who posts an article from his newspaper without securing copyright permission “will meet my little friend called Righthaven,” he sounded like a thug, which he clearly intended and enjoyed, but mostly he came off like the kind of fool that has so successfully reduced Las Vegas to one of the most depressed and depressing places in America.

Frederick argued that by using Righthaven, a company suing an ever-expanding array of non-profits, internet bulletin boards and even a local PR firm for unpermitted reproduction of R-J content, he is saving newspapers in an age of rampant internet pilfering.

With saviors like that, who needs a wrecking ball? As held earlier on this site, what Frederick really is doing is rendering R-J content worthless. For a perfect example of how, turn to the paper’s arch rival, the …

Review-Journal sues its own source

Anyone who doubts that enforcement of copyright law is out of step with fair play and how journalism is gathered should consider that yesterday representatives for the Las Vegas Review-Journal filed suit against the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada.

The case against the liberal advocacy group joins a growing list of complaints by the R-J’s parent company, Stephens Media, and its legal affiliate, Righthaven LLC, which in recent months have filed suit against a number of organizations as disparate as a Killerfrogs.com, a sports booster website of Texas Christian University, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws and a realty office based in Henderson, Nevada.

Each suit claims copyright infringement on the grounds that the organizations posted articles by Stephens Media outlets on their websites.

Leaving aside the Killer Frogs, marijuana advocates and the realtor, what makes yesterday’s lawsuit against the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada …

High good, low bad: Mead in November

For the moment, the future of Lake Mead is a coin toss, writes Henry Brean in the Las Vegas Review Journal. By this time next year, the surface of the reservoir could rise by about 15 feet or drop to a level not seen since 1937, when the lake was being filled for the first time. To keep reading Brean’s November 27, 2009 article, click here. After the jump are the federal Bureau of Reclamation closing elevations for Lake Mead for the month of November along with contrasting closing November levels going back to 2004.
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