"Patent trolls" were bad enough. Now there are "copyright trolls," and one in particular is suing anyone who has quoted content from the Las Vegas Review-Journal (LVRJ).
So says "Brad" at Wendy McElroy.com in the first of two articles. Apparently, seen how well patent trolls like SCO have done, companies are buying up the content of web sites and suing people who quote them.
Now you would think (if you aren't a lawyer) that quoting the articles in controversy would be "fair use". But fair use is an "affirmative defense", meaning it's up to the defendants to raise the issue, after they've been sued and shelled out the big bucks for attorneys and other costs. So in many cases it would be cheaper to buy a license to the material than defend a law suit. Hence the term "copyright troll".
In response "Brad" and Ms McElroy are boycotting the LVJR and other sites where the copyright is owned by copyright troll company Righthaven LLC. (No, I'm not going to link to them.) "Brad"'s second article deals with how to boycott the LVRJ and other Righthaven sites. You, gentle reader, might do the same.
One effect of their boycott is that Ms McElroy, a leading libertarian thinker and writer, is now unable to link to columns for the LVJR by Vin Suprynowicz, another leading libertarian thinker and writer. The irony being that libertarians generally uphold property rights. If you want to see some of those columns, sorry, you'll have to google for them.