Federal judge demolishes RightHaven's copyright lawsuit scheme.

[Anti Federalist]

Hat tip to RPF member Tony Sutton for initially posting this.

I found a longer, in depth story out of Las Vegas that I'm shamelessly cross posting here. It's worth the click to read the entire story.

Not only did this federal judge rule against them, they may end up getting fined.



Judge rules Righthaven lacks standing to sue, threatens sanctions over misrepresentations

http://www.vegasinc.com/news/2011/jun/14/judge-rules-righthaven-lacks-standing-sue-threaten/

A federal judge in Las Vegas today issued a potentially devastating ruling against copyright enforcer Righthaven LLC, finding it doesn't have standing to sue over Las Vegas Review-Journal stories, that it has misled the court and threatening to impose sanctions against Righthaven.

Because he found Righthaven doesn't have standing to sue, Chief U.S. District Judge for Nevada Roger Hunt dismissed Righthaven's copyright infringement lawsuit against the Democratic Underground.

But he's allowing the Democratic Underground to continue its counterclaim against Stephens Media LLC, owner of the Review-Journal. That could be expensive for Stephens Media as the Democratic Underground attorneys from the Electronic Frontier Foundation are asking to be awarded attorney's fees.

"The court believes that Righthaven has made multiple inaccurate and likely dishonest statements to the court," Hunt wrote in his ruling, citing specifically Righthaven's failure to disclose Stephens Media as an interested party in the litigation as Stephens Media clearly had an interest in the outcome of the copyright lawsuits.

[Anti Federalist]

///

[Brian4Liberty]

Great news!

[Kludge]

Update: Righthaven's now been hit with two awards against it, with another pretty much in the bag. One in the amount of $5k, which they've basically refused to pay (this was the case involving Democratic Underground). One in the amount of nearly $4k... Righthaven paid this award, but sent the check to an old office of the defense attorney (even while he'd been using his new address on all relevant filings), who had to get the new occupants to sign for the check delivery and send it over to him. There's also an award nearing $35k against Righthaven sought for frivolity because Righthaven didn't even own the content it was suing over (the Judge ruled it was Fair Use, anyway). Incredibly, Righthaven argues that because the suit was frivolous, the court had no jurisdiction over the matter, and therefor no award can be given. Basically, they're saying that because their suit was frivolous, they aren't subject to pay legal fees for filing a frivolous claim.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/08/righthaven-still-angering-judges-finally-pays-for-its-mistakes.ars?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss

[Anti Federalist]

Gah, what a bunch of slime mold.

People wonder why lawyers are so hated?

Here's hoping criminal contempt charges get filed.

Thanks for the update.


Update: Righthaven's now been hit with two awards against it, with another pretty much in the bag. One in the amount of $5k, which they've basically refused to pay (this was the case involving Democratic Underground). One in the amount of nearly $4k... Righthaven paid this award, but sent the check to an old office of the defense attorney (even while he'd been using his new address on all relevant filings), who had to get the new occupants to sign for the check delivery and send it over to him. There's also an award nearing $35k against Righthaven sought for frivolity because Righthaven didn't even own the content it was suing over (the Judge ruled it was Fair Use, anyway). Incredibly, Righthaven argues that because the suit was frivolous, the court had no jurisdiction over the matter, and therefor no award can be given. Basically, they're saying that because their suit was frivolous, they aren't subject to pay legal fees for filing a frivolous claim.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/08/righthaven-still-angering-judges-finally-pays-for-its-mistakes.ars?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss

[flightlesskiwi]

this is great!!

[RideTheDirt]

awesome news!

[AGRP]

People wonder why lawyers are so hated?

I dont think anyone has wondered that.

[heavenlyboy34]

cool :cool:

[Bern]

Righthaven is completely shameless. Bold and brazen affrontery indeed!


http://www.hulu.com/watch/19312/saturday-night-live-you-mock-me

[Kludge]

Bump.

[Carson]

Righthaven LLC is a copyright holding company founded in early 2010, which acquires newspaper content from its partner newspapers after finding that the content has been copied to online sites without permission, in order to engage in litigation against the site owners for copyright infringement. The lawsuits have been heavily criticized by commentators, who describe the activity as copyright trolling[1][2] and the company as a "lawsuit factory".[3] Righthaven LLC's CEO, Steven Gibson, is a partner in the Las Vegas office of American law firm Dickinson Wright and regularly speaks to the media about Righthaven.[4][5]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Righthaven

I would imagine that in this day and age the tough part would be finding someone with two nickels to pay up with if they did win.

Fark had a story a while back about a group that was buying up copyrights to popular pictures that had gone viral. The story was they would then try and get a claim against those that had posted them. Seems like it would have needed to be posted after they gained title. Still pretty chilling for a bunch of happy go lucky boobs out for the lulz.

[Kludge]

Righthaven smacked down again. This time, they had a previous win due to the defendant not showing up tossed out.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110824/03274015655/case-that-righthaven-had-won-default-now-dismissed-lack-standing.shtml

[Kludge]

Righthaven's toast. Their clients are now firing them.

"It was a dumb idea": newspaper chain fires copyright troll Righthaven

"The new chief executive of MediaNews Group, publisher of the Denver Post and 50 other newspapers, said it was “a dumb idea” for the nation’s second-largest newspaper chain to sign up with copyright troll Righthaven.The Denver-based publisher’s year-long copyright infringement litigation deal with Righthaven is terminating at month’s end, said John Paton, who replaced Dean Singleton to lead the company on Wednesday.

“The issues about copyright are real,” Paton told Wired.com in a telephone interview. “But the idea that you would hire someone on an—essentially—success fee to run around and sue people at will who may or may not have infringed as a way of protecting yourself... does not reflect how news is created and disseminated in the modern world.

“I come from the idea that it was a dumb idea from the start,” Paton added, noting that Righthaven was informed of the decision to end relations last month.

..."

Full article @ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/09/it-was-a-dumb-idea-newspaper-chain-fires-copyright-troll-righthaven.ars?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+arstechnica%2Findex+(Ars+Tech nica+-+Featured+Content)

[Brian4Liberty]

They were worse than ambulance chasers. "First thing we do..."

[Bern]

Thank you EFF.

[Kludge]

Righthaven slammed.... again.

"Another day, another Righthaven disaster. We've been waiting for a while for Judge John Kane in Colorado to rule on Righthaven's cases there. As you may recall, he'd put them all on hold (http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110520/11285114356/colorado-judge-puts-all-righthaven-cases-hold.shtml)back in May to determine if Righthaven had standing. He put them on hold after the details of the sham copyright assignments came out (http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110416/01084413924/unsealed-document-reveals-sham-copyright-assignments-to-righthaven.shtml), but before a series of Nevada courts all ruled against Righthaven, saying that the company had no standing to sue, because it did not actually hold the copyright.

Judge Kane has finally ruled in one such case and once again Righthaven comes up a loser. Judge Kane ruled similarly to the Nevada cases in explaining that Righthaven did not have standing or the copyrights properly assigned to it, and thus he has dismissed the case and accelerated things by switching the status of the case from a motion to dismiss up to summary judgment, allowing him to order Righthaven to also pay legal fees (something it's been avoiding and ignoring in other cases). "

Full story with comments @ http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110927/16414616118/righthaven-loses-big-time-colorado-as-well.shtml