From Threat Level, we learn about a big business called Righthaven picking on little people and non-profit organizations who run blogs. If you are running a blog, there are two options. A) Register as a DMCA takedown agent with the U.S. Copyright Office (which I am now in the process of doing) or B) Prepare to travel to Las Vegas federal court to defend yourself against this copyright troll, based (usually) on a commenter’s use of copyright material. Here’s an excerpt from the Threat Level article:

Founded in March, the Las Vegas-based Righthaven has begun buying out the copyrights to newspaper content of the Las Vegas Review-Journal for the sole purpose of suing blogs and websites that re-post, or even excerpt, those articles without permission. The company has settled about 60 of 160 cases for a few thousand dollars each, and plans to expand its operations to other newspapers across the country. Many of its lawsuits arise, not from articles posted by a website’s proprietors, but from comments and forum posts by the site’s readers.

How-to instructions are provided at Threat Level.