Greedy Gawker Gets Spanked

PIE ANXIETY Denton Blog oligarch Nick Denton has made a lot of money converting other people's content into his own ad revenue. But that simple formula is now threatening to land him in a heap of legal trouble thanks to overzealous use of copyrighted video.

CNET News.com reports that a number of media companies, including ABC, NBC, Fox, Viacom, and Apple are contemplating taking action against Denton's Gawker Media over its flagrant appropriation of video clips. According to the report, a Gawker employee using the handle belowtheradar has posted some 60 clips to YouTube, many of which subsequently appeared on Gawker-owned sites. Particularly galling to the copyright holders is the context in which the clips appeared: bookended by ads for Gawker brands, such as Valleywag and Gizmodo.