Righthaven Goes Down Hard: A Look at the Democratic Underground Decision

This week copyright thugster and blogger-suer-extraordinaire Righthaven was dealt a stunning defeat in court. (Court’s written order [pdf])

It is a total victory for defendant Democratic Underground, but the ruling’s importance goes far beyond that. Unless overturned on appeal, it clearly signals the end of Righthaven’s current business model. The order also signals that even with restructuring, Righthaven might not have a viable enterprise going forward. ...

Righthaven, in suing bloggers for reposting stories or portions of stories from the Las Vegas Review-Journal, had represented that Stephens Media had assigned to it the copyright being sued over in any given case. But now, having scrutinized the SAA, the federal court in the Democratic Underground case has concluded that the copyright was never validly assigned.

And misrepresenting facts to a court is a very, very bad thing to do.

Why wasn’t the copyright validly assigned? It turns out that Stephens Media executed a form assigning the copyright, but, pursuant to the SAA, Stephens Media retained all exclusive rights with regard to that copyright except the right to sue. And a copyright assignment is not valid unless an exclusive right is transferred as well. So, for instance, Righthaven was not conferred the exclusive right to reproduce the article. (And that’s sort of what copyright is all about.)

Righthaven Loss: Judge Rules Reposting Entire Article Is Fair Use

A federal judge ruled Monday that publishing an entire article without the rights holder’s authorization was a fair use of the work, in yet another blow to newspaper copyright troll Righthaven.

It’s not often that republishing an entire work without permission is deemed fair use. Fair use is an infringement defense when the defendant reproduced a copyrighted work for purposes such as criticism, commentary, teaching and research. The defense is analyzed on a case-by-case basis.

Monday’s ruling dismissed a lawsuit brought by Righthaven, a Las Vegas-based copyright litigation factory jointly owned with newspaper publisher Stephens Media. The venture’s litigation tactics and ethics are being questioned by several judges and attorneys, a factor that also weighed in on U.S. District Judge Philip Pro’s decision Monday.

Righthaven has sued more than 200 websites, bloggers and commenters for copyright infringement. More than 100 have settled out of court.

The lawsuit decided Monday targeted Wayne Hoehn, a Vietnam veteran who posted all 19 paragraphs of November editorial from the Las Vegas Review-Journal, which is owned by Stephens Media. Hoehn posted the article, and its headline, “Public Employee Pensions: We Can’t Afford Them” on medjacksports.com to prompt discussion about the financial affairs of the nation’s states. Hoehn was a user of the site, not an employee.

I wouldn't encourage this. I think excerpting is fairer fair use, and safer. Great seeing Righthaven screwed again, though.

"Righthaven deserves some credit for taking this position, as it requires an amazing amount of chutzpah," wrote J. Malcolm DeVoy, counsel for the defense. "Righthaven seeks a ruling holding that, as long as a plaintiff’s case is completely frivolous, then the court is deprived of the right to make the frivolously sued defendant whole, whereas a partially frivolous case might give rise to fee liability. Righthaven’s view, aside from being bizarre, does not even comport with the law surrounding prudential standing."

Judge: Righthaven lacked standing, abused Copyright Act

Righthaven LLC of Las Vegas lacked standing to file copyright infringement lawsuits in Colorado under its lawsuit contract with the Denver Post and abused the Copyright Act in doing so, a federal judge ruled Tuesday.

Senior U.S. District Judge John L. Kane in Denver granted summary judgment for Righthaven lawsuit defendant Leland Wolf and the It Makes Sense Blog against Righthaven.

"In light of the need to discourage the abuse of the statutory remedies for copyright infringement, I exercise my discretion under the Copyright Act and order that Righthaven shall reimburse Mr. Wolf's full costs in defending this action, including reasonable attorney's fees," Kane's order said.

As a test case, the Wolf case was the lone active case in Colorado among 34 still active there. This indicates the other 33 will be dismissed as well.

Las Vegas copyright infringement lawsuit filer Righthaven LLC’s financial problems grew Tuesday when the federal court in Las Vegas commanded the U.S. Marshals Service to seize more than $63,000 in Righthaven assets to satisfy a creditor’s judgment and costs.

Rumblefish, a company notorious for sending copyright takedown notices to YouTube alleging copyright violations in videos' soundtracks, demanded removal of a video whose audio consists entirely of ambient birdsong recorded during a walk in the woods. When the video's creator objected, Rumblefish repeated its accusation, and Google added the notation "These content owners have reviewed your video and confirmed their claims to some or all of its content: Entity: rumblefish Content Type: Sound Recording."

Righthaven, a copyright-troll law firm that failed in its attempt to make money for newspapers by suing readers for sharing stories online, was dealt a death blow Tuesday by a federal judge who ordered the Las Vegas company to forfeit “all of” its intellectual property and other “intangible property” to settle its debts.

The order is an ironic twist to a copyright trolling saga that began in 2010, when Righthaven was formed with the idea of suing blogs and websites that re-post newspaper articles or snippets of them without permission.

U.S. District Judge Philip M. Pro of Nevada ordered Righthaven to surrender for auction the 278 copyrighted news articles that were the subject of its lawsuits.

“The copyright registrations to more than 275 works are in Righthaven’s name, can be transferred by this court, and can then be auctioned,” the judge ruled.

Democratic Underground files against Stephens Media to recover $774,683 in Righthaven legal fees

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002556318


Ouch, that's gonna smart if they get it all.

There is a copyright trolling firm called Prenda Law that has an atorrney by the name of John Steele. I wonder if it is the same person?

There is a federal judge who is very angry at Prenda Law right now.

http://www.popehat.com/2013/03/06/what- ... s-angeles/
http://www.popehat.com/2013/03/11/brett ... -the-star/

Wow

I just read the whole series up to todays blog.

It appears that there is a California lawyer worse than Orly. (at least in the ethics department)

Equally interestingly, it does appear that there are judges who are willing to take take unethical attorneys to task for their conduct...

I know, I know, any day now and all that...

Unethical? Hell these guys were involved a criminal enterprise. It's a real RICO case.

It is pretty clear that they were the ones "pirating" their own work, then extorting people who downloaded it.

I bet the Judge suspects this as well.