Righthaven plans appeal to block auction of copyrights
Facebook
Fark
Digg
Reddit
StumbleFriday
16 December 2011
2 a.m.
Archives
Copyright lawsuit filer Righthaven LLC of Las Vegas will ask an appeals court to block a planned auction of its copyrights, an attorney said Thursday.
Shawn Mangano, an outside attorney for Righthaven, said he was drawing up an appeal and would file it with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco in the coming days.
On Monday, a federal judge in Las Vegas granted a Righthaven defendant’s motion that a receiver be appointed to auction Righthaven’s 277 copyrights to satisfy part of the defendant’s $63,720 legal claim against Righthaven. Righthaven at that time had seven days to transfer its intellectual property to the receiver.
Righthaven’s federal copyright registrations mostly cover material Righthaven obtained from the Las Vegas Review-Journal and the Denver Post for lawsuit purposes, but also includes sports betting content and two adult movies.
The defendant demanding the auction is Wayne Hoehn, a Kentucky message board poster who was targeted by Righthaven in one of its 275 infringement lawsuits over R-J and Denver Post material.
After Hoehn’s lawsuit was dismissed because Righthaven lacked standing to sue him and because he was protected by the fair use doctrine of copyright law, U.S. District Judge Philip Pro ordered Righthaven to cover his legal costs as he was the prevailing party.
Righthaven, however, insists that once Pro found Righthaven lacked standing to sue Hoehn, Pro lacked authority to issue the fair use ruling and he lacked authority to award the legal fees to Hoehn.
The judge automatically lost jurisdiction over the case when he found Righthaven lacked standing, Righthaven says — though that’s an argument rejected so far by three federal judges in Nevada and Colorado.
Righthaven has already appealed dismissal of its suit against Hoehn and the awarding of legal fees.
Its new appeal will ask the 9th Circuit to block the copyright auction — and Righthaven will again argue Pro lacked authority to approve that auction, Mangano said.
The company’s reasoning, again, is that since Pro found Righthaven lacked standing, the suit should have ended there and Pro lacked jurisdiction to approve the copyright auction plan.
"That order is null and void under 9th Circuit case law," Mangano said.
The 9th Circuit on Oct. 19 already rejected Righthaven’s "urgent motion" that it block the collection activities of Hoehn and his attorneys.
Righthaven at that time was arguing, "Righthaven may be forced to file bankruptcy to protect its intellectual property and proprietary assets from seizure and liquidation."
The appeals court was unmoved in October, rejecting Righthaven’s request without commenting. But it did cite case law on standards an emergency appeal applicant must meet to show irreparable injury.
The difference between now and then, Mangano said Thursday, is that the company can show the appeals court it now faces imminent harm if the copyrights it sues over are seized.
In October, it was merely trying to stop Hoehn’s collection actions that had not yet escalated to the point where they are now: U.S. Marshals executed against a Righthaven bank account that apparently contained less than $1,000, leading to the copyright auction plan.
Share
Discussion 2 comments
Comments are moderated by VegasInc editors. Our goal is not to limit the discussion, but rather to elevate it. Comments should be relevant and contain no abusive language. Comments that are off-topic, vulgar, profane or include personal attacks will be removed. Full comments policy.
Additionally, we now display comments from trusted commenters by default. Those wishing to become a trusted commenter need to verify their identity or sign in with Facebook Connect to tie their Facebook account to their VEGAS INC account. For more on this change, read our story about how it works and why we did it.
Only trusted comments are displayed on this page. Untrusted comments have expired from this story.
Post a comment
Commenting requires registration.
If you have a LasVegasSun.com account, you are already registered.
Most Popular
- Viewed
- Discussed
- E-mailed
- Can old Sahara site become a symbol of Las Vegas’ rebound?
- With Ron Paul’s infiltrators, clout of state GOP party further erodes
- Coolican: Courageous first move could bring success to north portion of the Strip
- School District to lay off 1,015 teachers, literacy specialists
- North Las Vegas slashes budget, clearing way for 200 layoffs
So where is Righthaven coming up with the money for another appeal? Steve Gibson's appearance in court to testify about Righthaven finances is going to be very interesting. If he shows up at all.
Did we miss:
1. That this was a copyright case? Righthaven loudly proclaimed it as a copyright case. The copyright act allows (17 USC 505) an award of attorneys fees to the prevailing party. Righthaven sued under the copyright act and lost. The other guys were the prevailing parties. The award was proper under the copyright act.
2. That it was Righthaven that brought these actions to drive the so-called copyright infringers out of business? That it used the filing of these lawsuits (which it had no legal basis for filing) to oppress, injure and harass defendants and to extort money from its targets under color of law when it had no standing and perhaps no substantive basis for doing so? That this was an abuse of the Court's process? Was not Righthaven's conduct in these cases extraordinarily malicious, wanton, and oppressive" such as to warrant an award of attorneys fees? (See Jartech, Inc. v. Clancy, 666 F. 2d 403, 407, (9th Cir. 1982), cert. denied, 459 U.S. 879, reh'q denied, 459 U.S. 1059, second reh'q denied, 463 U.S. 1237 (1983); see also, Bibbero Systems, Inc. v. Colwell, 893 F.2d 1104, 1108 (9th Cir. 1990) [reaffirming the validity of the Jartech standard and applying it to pretrial dismissals]).
3. That lack of standing to sue does not negate the inherent powers of Courts to award attorneys fees as a sanction for the sort of oppressive and malicious tactics used by Righthaven in pursuit of its business plan and makes it even more appropriate? (See Alyeska Pipeline Service Co.v. Wilderness Society, 421 U.S 240, 258 (1975) ["Also, a court may assess attorneys' fees for the willful disobedience of a court order . . . or when the losing party has 'acted in bad faith, vexatiously, wantonly, or for oppressive reasons'."]; see also, Chambers v. NASCO, Inc., 501U.S.32, 111 S.Ct. 2123, 2135 (1991) ["There is, therefore, nothing in the other sanctioning mechanisms or prior cases interpreting them that warrants a conclusion that a federal court may not, as a matter of law, resort to its inherent power to impose attorney's fees as a sanction for bad faith conduct."])
4. That this case will come down to the very interesting question of whether the LLC structure will actually shield Stephens Media and the other members of Righthaven from personal liability in the affair?
Hmmm... I did not know that Righthaven held copyright on adult movies. This fact puts Marc Randazza in somewhat awkward situation. Just imagine if Righthaven would send shake-down settlement letters to bittorrent users who shared those movies...
I experience acute cognitive dissonance every time I stumble upon a story involving Randazza...