Mike Weatherford wrote a lengthy piece on last weekend’s gathering in Vegas. Not your ordinary fluffy wrapup, but a decent account with some interesting details and some inside observations.

Righthaven LLC has teamed up with the Las Vegas Review-Journal and the Denver Post to sue ‘mom and pop’ websites, as well as nonprofit, political action, public interest, writers, and forum board operators for copyright violations. The strategy of Righthaven is to sue hundreds and thousands of these websites and counts on the fact that many are unfunded and will be forced to settle out of court. Nearly all cases are being filed in a Nevada Federal Court and must be fought in this jurisdiction. You are not safe from Righthaven if you are out-of-state.

We have removed the quote in order to protect ourselves from legal action.

There were some tactical and strategical errors by the folks who threw the fest, resulting in empty seats and disgruntled fans here and there, but it was the first year and it was rather large… and there were three large entertainment entities involved. That many suits can’t agree on anything.

We enjoyed reading Weatherford’s piece, but we disagreed with a couple of his conclusions, like the following about Dennis Miller:

Righthaven LLC has teamed up with the Las Vegas Review-Journal and the Denver Post to sue ‘mom and pop’ websites, as well as nonprofit, political action, public interest, writers, and forum board operators for copyright violations. The strategy of Righthaven is to sue hundreds and thousands of these websites and counts on the fact that many are unfunded and will be forced to settle out of court. Nearly all cases are being filed in a Nevada Federal Court and must be fought in this jurisdiction. You are not safe from Righthaven if you are out-of-state.

We have removed the quote in order to protect ourselves from legal action.

“Do or die time?” Hardly. Miller is regularly playing, and, we assume, packing Vegas– elsewise, he wouldn’t be playing there regularly. In fact, he was just there (at the MGM Grand?) when we were at the other end of the Strip (at the Riv) last month. As for the any perceived change in Miller’s tone, it probably isn’t an indication of any newfound humility as much as a recognition of the seriousness of the situation and the subject matter. Anyone who regularly watched Millers CNBC show saw a lot of “soft-spoken explanation,” especially during that show’s Varsity segments.

We saw Extra!, the strident, ghastly, orgiastic celebrity rag of a television show, describe this festival as the first ever comedy festival to be held in Vegas. Can we get an Ouch! for the folks who put on a comedy festival in that town for three out of the last four years? Yes we can. Speaking of which, we hear rumblings that those folks are mounting yet another effort to hold a festival in Las Vegas, this time in January of 2006, with some different strategies, different backers and ambitious partners. Stay tuned for updates on that.