Bloggers, beware.

Another copyright troll is looking to sue you for the offense of quoting from and linking to their websites.

Few except blatant thieves like Michael Moore take the stance that people have the right to unfairly use copyrighted material.  But Righthaven, LLC is suing bloggers who are using material within the bounds of Fair Use.  It’s a bullying tactic – sue for a huge amount, and settle for a few thousand, because that’s cheaper than going to court even if you win.  So far, Righthaven is suing on behalf of the Stephens Media Group and WEHCO Media which own more than 60 newspapers between them.  So if you’ve excerpted and linked to articles from those papers, you could be slapped with a lawsuit.

Clayton Cramer provided a list for use with the Firefox Blocksite plugin that you can use to ensure you don’t accidentally visit – and subsequently link to – any of the Stephens Media Group sites.  I’ve updated the list to include WEHCO, so the complete block list as of 8/31/2010 is in this text file for your convenience:

blocksites.txt

Or make your own text file block list of the following sites so you don’t, as Cramer put it, “unintentionally visit one of the Evil Empire’s websites.”  You might also want to scour your blog’s archives clean of quotes and links to these sites.

ADDED: And if you’ve linked any of these sites, after you’ve removed the links and quotes, get Google to clear that page from its cache.  I’m adding this because someone just clicked through to the site from a Google cache search for one of these urls.

[BlockSite]

http://www.stephensmedia.com/

http://www.stephensmedia.com/gamingwire/

http://www.examiner-enterprise.com/

http://www.boonevilledemocrat.com/

http://www.charlestonexpress.com/

http://www.courier-tribune.com/

http://www.columbiadailyherald.com/

http://www.thedailyworld.com/

http://www.eltiempolibre.com/

http://www.elynews.com/

http://www.greenwooddemocrat.com/

http://www.hilohawaiitribune.com/

http://www.herald-democrat.com/

http://www.lasvegascitylife.com/

http://www.reviewjournal.com/

http://www.arkansasnews.com/

http://www.thevidette.com/

http://www.nwaonline.net/

http://www.paris-express.com/

http://www.pbcommercial.com/

http://www.pressargus.com/

http://www.southernnevadahomeandgarden.com/

http://www.snhomes.com/

http://www.swtimes.com/

http://www.vanburencountydem.com/

http://www.viewnews.com/

http://www.stephensdc.com/

http://www.westhawaiitoday.com/

http://www.1st100.com/

http://www.FOIArkansas.com/

http://www.LasVegasNewsPapers.com/

http://www.NWAOnline.net/

http://www.FortSmith.com/

http://www.PineBluff.com/

http://www.Van-Buren.com/

http://www.CasinoGaming.com/

http://www.LasVegas.com/

http://www.LA.com/

http://www.Hawaii.com/

http://www.lvrj.com/

http://donrey.koz.com/

http://www.texomalink.com/

http://www.arkansasonline.com/

http://www.nwaonline.com/

http://www.californiademocrat.com/

http://www.timesfreepress.com/

http://www.fultonsun.com/

http://www.newstribune.com/

http://www.nwaonline.com/

http://www.bannernews.net/

http://epaper.wehco.com/Daily/Skins/Camden/

http://www.eldoradonews.com/

http://www.texarkanagazette.com/

http://www.hotsr.com/

http://www.whitecountycabletv.com/

http://www.camdencabletv.com/

http://www.eastarkansasvideo.com/

http://www.hopecabletv.com/

http://www.longviewcabletv.com/

http://www.pinebluffcabletv.com/

http://www.resorttvcable.com/

http://www.tahlequahcabletv.com/

http://www.vicksburgvideo.com/

http://www.whitecountycabletv.com/