''Los Angeles Times v. Free Republic'', 56 U.S.P.Q.2d 1862 (C.D. Cal. 2000), is a

United States district court The United States district courts are the trial courts of the United States federal judiciary, U.S. federal judiciary. There is one district court for each United States federal judicial district, federal judicial district. Each district cov ...

copyright law A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive legal right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, e ...

case. Several

newspaper A newspaper is a Periodical literature, periodical publication containing written News, information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as poli ...

s sued the Internet forum Free Republic for allowing its users to repost the full text of

copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive legal right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, ...

ed newspaper articles, asserting that this constituted

copyright infringement Copyright infringement (at times referred to as piracy) is the use of Copyright#Scope, works protected by copyright without permission for a usage where such permission is required, thereby infringing certain exclusive rights granted to the c ...

. Free Republic claimed that they were not

liable In law, liable means "responsible or answerable in law; legally obligated". Legal liability concerns both civil law and criminal law and can arise from various areas of law, such as contracts, torts, taxes, or fines given by government agencie ...

under the

doctrine Doctrine (from , meaning 'teaching, instruction') is a codification (law), codification of beliefs or a body of teacher, teachings or instructions, taught principles or positions, as the essence of teachings in a given branch of knowledge or in a ...

fair use Fair use is a Legal doctrine, doctrine in United States law that permits limited use of copyrighted material without having to first acquire permission from the copyright holder. Fair use is one of the limitations to copyright intended to bal ...

and the First Amendment guarantee of

freedom of speech Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction. The rights, right to freedom of expression has been r ...

. The federal courts ruled in favor of the newspapers.

Background

Free Republic, an Internet forum for Republican and

conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy and ideology that seeks to promote and preserve traditional institutions, customs, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civiliza ...

activist Activism consists of efforts to promote, impede, direct or intervene in social, political, economic or environmental reform with the desire to make changes in society toward a perceived common good. Forms of activism range from mandate build ...

s, was founded in 1996 by Jim Robinson of

Fresno, California Fresno (; ) is a city in the San Joaquin Valley of California, United States. It is the county seat of Fresno County, California, Fresno County and the largest city in the greater Central Valley (California), Central Valley region. It covers a ...

, and gained popularity during the

impeachment of Bill Clinton Bill Clinton, the List of presidents of the United States, 42nd president of the United States, was Federal impeachment in the United States, impeached by the United States House of Representatives of the 105th United States Congress on Decem ...

. During the first few years of its existence, Free Republic's members made a practice of posting and archiving the full text of copyrighted news articles on its website, despite the objection of the copyright holders. The

website A website (also written as a web site) is any web page whose content is identified by a common domain name and is published on at least one web server. Websites are typically dedicated to a particular topic or purpose, such as news, educatio ...

homepage A home page (or homepage) is the main web page of a website. Usually, the home page is located at the Root directory, root of the website's Domain name, domain or subdomain. For example, if the domain is example.com, the home page is likely l ...

stated:

District court proceedings

In December 1997, the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...

'', ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...

'', and other newspapers sent cease-and-desist letters by certified mail to Free Republic and to Robinson demanding that they stop republishing and archiving full-text articles of copyrighted materials. Robinson defiantly refused, saying that before he would agree to excerpt and link—that is, to post only excerpts of articles and use

hyperlink In computing, a hyperlink, or simply a link, is a digital reference providing direct access to Data (computing), data by a user (computing), user's point and click, clicking or touchscreen, tapping. A hyperlink points to a whole document or to ...

s to the original source for the full text—the newspapers would have to "rip the keyboard from his cold dead fingers" (a reference to the famous statement, " I'll give you my gun when you take it from my cold, dead hands"). On September 28, 1998, the ''Los Angeles Times'', The Washington Post Company, and the Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive (the

wholly owned subsidiary A subsidiary, subsidiary company, or daughter company is a company completely or partially owned or controlled by another company, called the parent company or holding company, which has legal and financial control over the subsidiary company. Unl ...

of The Washington Post Company that produces the online version of ''The Washington Post'', washingtonpost.com) filed suit in the

United States District Court for the Central District of California The United States District Court for the Central District of California (in case citations, C.D. Cal.; commonly referred to as the CDCA or CACD) is a United States district court, federal trial court that serves over 19 million people in South ...

against Robinson, Free Republic, and Electronic Orchard alleging copyright infringement. (Electronic Orchard was the name of a "business of unknown legal form" that conducted website development and "regularly and extensively advertised" its services on Free Republic and was owned and controlled by Robinson as Free Republic was). Ten more defendants only known by the

username A user is a person who uses a computer or Computer network, network Service (systems architecture), service. A user often has a user account and is identified to the system by a username (or user name). Some software products provide serv ...

s were sued as Does 1 through 10. The complaint stated that Free Republic (the "Infringing Website") had contained "dozens if not hundreds of Plaintiffs' copyrighted articles," and named ten examples (one each for Does 1 through 10). The ensuing court battle over the next four years revolved around issues of copyright and fair use. Robinson characterized it as "a life and death struggle with elements of the

socialist Socialism is an economic ideology, economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse Economic system, economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. It describes ...

propaganda Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded l ...

machine, namely, the ''Los Angeles Times'' and ''The Washington Post''." The newspapers were represented by Rex S. Heinke, originally of the law firm of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. During the litigation he moved first to the firm of Greines, Martin, Stein & Richland, LLP, of Beverly Hills, then to the

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld. Free Republic were represented by the now- disbarred attorney Brian Langford Buckley and the Newport Beach-based David Flyer. Free Republic responded to the suit by raising an

affirmative defense An affirmative defense to a civil lawsuit or criminal charge is a fact or set of facts other than those alleged by the plaintiff or prosecutor which, if proven by the defendant, defeats or mitigates the legal consequences of the defendant's ...

of fair use. The plaintiffs moved for partial summary adjudication on defendants' fair use defense on October 4, 1999, and cross-filed for

summary judgment In law, a summary judgment, also referred to as judgment as a matter of law or summary disposition, is a Judgment (law), judgment entered by a court for one party and against another party summarily, i.e., without a full Trial (law), trial. Summa ...

citing a First Amendment defense on October 19 under seal. Judge Margaret M. Morrow issued a preliminary ruling on November 8, 1999, rejecting the "fair use" argument. On April 4, 2000, Morrow issued an order granting partial summary judgment to the plaintiffs and denying the defendant's motion for summary judgment. In this opinion, Morrow set out the federal standard for fair use of copyrighted materials, which has been the basis of authority in all subsequent litigation. Plaintiff filed for summary judgment on the remaining issues of permanent

injunction An injunction is an equitable remedy in the form of a special court order compelling a party to do or refrain from doing certain acts. It was developed by the English courts of equity but its origins go back to Roman law and the equitable rem ...

and

damages At common law, damages are a remedy in the form of a monetary award to be paid to a claimant as compensation for loss or injury. To warrant the award, the claimant must show that a breach of duty has caused foreseeable loss. To be recognized at ...

on June 5, 2000. The defendants failed to file any opposition to the plaintiff's second motion for summary judgment and claiming they had not been served, but that the point did not matter as they "did not oppose the

relief Relief is a sculpture, sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces remain attached to a solid background of the same material. The term ''wikt:relief, relief'' is from the Latin verb , to raise (). To create a sculpture in relief is to give ...

being requested." The defendants waived their remaining defenses and stipulated to the entry of final judgment in district court with a stay on execution, preserving their right to appeal to the

United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (in case citations, 9th Cir.) is the U.S. federal court of appeals that has appellate jurisdiction over the U.S. district courts for the following federal judicial districts: * Distric ...

only on fair use and First Amendment grounds. The stipulation that defendants agreed to on November 16, 2000, gave plaintiffs a permanent injunction against posting full-text versions of copyrighted materials, ordered archived articles be removed, and awarded the plaintiffs $1 million in damages, but no

attorney's fee Attorney's fee is a chiefly United States term for compensation for legal services performed by an Lawyer, attorney (lawyer or law firm) for a client, in or out of court. Fees may be an hourly, flat-rate or contingent fee. Recent studies suggest ...

s. Robinson claimed to be judgment-proof, saying "Practically speaking, we were already

bankrupt Bankruptcy is a legal process through which people or other entities who cannot repay debts to creditors may seek relief from some or all of their debts. In most jurisdictions, bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the de ...

long before any of this got started. We just did not have, and still do not have any assets to protect..."

Appeal

Brian Langford Buckley filed the defendant's appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on December 15, 2001. The appellant's opening brief was filed April 20, the appellee's brief was filed May 31, and the appellant's reply was filed June 25. On September 1, the Defendant's attorney was declared inactive by the

State Bar of California The State Bar of California is an administrative division of the Supreme Court of California which licenses attorneys and regulates the practice of law in California. It is responsible for managing the admission of lawyers to the practice of law ...

due to noncompliance with Minimum Continuing Legal Education (MCLE) requirements. He was therefore declared not eligible to practice law. Buckley and Robinson later clashed publicly regarding related legal matters, and Buckley was banned from Free Republic. On October 5, the defendants notified the court of appeals of their substitution of counsel. The parties then began negotiating a settlement. The parties ultimately agreed that in return for Defendants dropping their appeal and agreeing to both endorse the Stipulation for Entry of Amended Final Judgment containing the Permanent Injunction Order and link to it on the Free Republic homepage, the defendants would only be jointly and severally liable to the newspapers for $5,000 each, which was not described as damages or legal fees, and the Court found that plaintiffs had "no 'adequate legal remedy' other than a permanent injunction to protect them against further acts of copyright infringements by the three named defendants." Robinson announced the decision to drop the appeal and begin excerpting and linking articles on June 19, 2002, saying "Well, my fingers are not cold and dead and my keyboard has not been ripped away." Thousands of threads were subsequently deleted from the archives as ''Times'' and ''Post'' articles were purged. Free Republic has complied with other post-litigation requests from other copyright owners such as ''

USA Today ''USA Today'' (often stylized in all caps) is an American daily middle-market newspaper and news broadcasting company. Founded by Al Neuharth in 1980 and launched on September 14, 1982, the newspaper operates from Gannett's corporate headq ...

'' to excerpt and link.

Footnotes

External links

Original complaint
{{DEFAULTSORT:Los Angeles Times V. Free Republic 2000 in United States case law United States District Court for the Central District of California cases United States copyright case law Fair use case law Los Angeles Times