Fear shuts down Lone Star Times blog

Bloggers all across the country are following the mess created by the Righthaven lawsuits. If anyone doesn't know, Righthaven LLC is the company established for the purpose of recruiting clients and suing bloggers for copyright infringement. It's a nasty, nasty business, and Righthavenlawsuits.com was set up to counter that nastiness.

But now we learn about a victim that didn't even get sued but is shutting down for fear of being sued. Lone Star Times was a great blog, and it's sure to be missed by its many fans. But it's bye bye. Here's what they say:

The proverbial “straw that broke the camel’s back” however recently came in the form of our growing awareness of the legal uncertainty and jeopardy faced by bloggers being sued in mass-fashion over questionable copyright claims. See here and here for more information, if you want to learn more.

Put simply, from a risk/reward standpoint even the remote possibility of getting entangled in this type of mess wasn’t worth it. The time to pull the plug had arrived.

What's needed is a clarification in the copyright legislation of just what "fair use" means. But that would require a Congress with the people's interest at heart. The matter will probably take years to resolve through litigation. And in the meantime, there will be a hole where Lone Star Times once stood so proudly.

Comments

[Eric]

Back when I was a "real blogger" (hard as that is to believe), I was actually recruited by and did a few posts for LST. I quickly discovered that keeping one blog going was difficult, much less doing justice to more, so I resigned that volunteer role. David Benzion was gracious enough to leave the door open for a return, and I occasionally wondered if I'd passed up a great opportunity. I'm really sorry to see 'em shutter the site.

[Geo]

I used to wonder why individuals in group blogs didn't go independent. But it seems that in many cases the group is more than a sum of the parts, or however that cliche goes. For the readers the group blogers may present a more diverse and interesting attraction than any one of them could alone. And for the bloggers there must be some comfort in being part of a group, especially if the group has a big audience.

In any event, that group is gone. But Eric, you'll always have it as part of your blogging history.

[Kimmon Johnson]

George,

There were other factors involved in our shutting down Lone Star Times, but the copyright trolling by the vile Righthaven convinced us to close the doors.

There's no sure fire way to avoid links and quotes to their publications unless every single comment is moderated. For an all volunteer operation that is virtually impossible. When you have dozens of daily commenters, many more occasional ones and 200 to 300 comments spread over 5-8 comment threads in a day, it is insanely difficult to police. We were also concerned our commenters were at risk since Righthaven is suing them in addition to website owners.

At any rate, we are all sad about closing, but will move on and do other things down the line. There's always the possibility LST may be revived someday, particularly if these intellectual property questions become better defined or resolved.

Best of Luck,

Texpat of LST

[Geo]

Thanks Texpat,

That there was more to it than Righthaven was clear, but Righthaven was the take-away because it's so much of a threat to blogging as most of us know it. At best, a good definition of "fair use" will come out of it. At worst, Righthaven will spawn a bunch of soulless copycats.

I'll miss Lone Star Times, and I'm sorry you all are going offline. But it's your life to live, and I wish the very best to all of you.