A new round of criticism erupted Friday over the Righthaven copyright infringement lawsuits after the Las Vegas firm’s litigation contract with the Denver Post was made public.
The contract, obtained by attorneys in one of the Righthaven Colorado cases, is similar to Righthaven’s contract for Las Vegas Review-Journal lawsuits with R-J owner Stephens Media LLC in that the Denver Post receives a 50 percent cut of lawsuit revenue, minus costs.
And it has the same flaws as the Review-Journal contract in that it doesn’t give Righthaven standing to sue, defense attorneys said Friday.
That could doom Righthaven’s pending lawsuits over Denver Post material in federal courts in Colorado, Nevada and South Carolina.
And like the problem with the Review-Journal contract, the disclosure of the Denver Post contract could open Righthaven up to more counterclaims and potentially demands by settling defendants that they get their money back.
Of Righthaven’s 274 lawsuits over newspaper content filed since March 2010, 212 involve Review-Journal material and 62 are over a Denver Post photo and two columns.
Righthaven has filed 57 lawsuits in Colorado over the TSA pat-down photo, and 33 are still open.
It also filed one suit over Denver Post material in South Carolina and four more over Post content in Las Vegas including suits against high-profile targets Matt Drudge and Citadel Broadcasting.
Attorneys at Randazza Legal Group in Las Vegas, who on Friday made the Righthaven/Denver Post lawsuit contract public in a court filing, said the document shows Righthaven has been misleading the federal court in Denver and litigants there about its right to sue.
Similar charges are likely to be made in the South Carolina and Nevada lawsuits over Post material.
The "Copyright Alliance Agreement’’ with Post owner MediaNews Group Inc. has "the same flaws that have plagued Righthaven’s agreement with Stephens Media LLC: Righthaven does not own the copyrighted work, nor any component rights to it,’’ the attorneys wrote in a court filing.
"While the jurisdiction and the copyrighted work at issue have changed in Righthaven’s Colorado cases, compared to its Nevada ones, the unlawful scheme used by Righthaven is the same. As such, it should be treated with equal prejudice. Righthaven’s operations must be dismantled as unlawful and contrary to the Copyright Act – to say nothing of the Righthaven model’s inherent deceit and exploitation,’’ the attorneys charged in their court filing.
Righthaven hasn’t yet responded to these assertions and it’s unknown if Righthaven and MediaNews are rewriting their lawsuit contract to better establish Righthaven’s standing – as Righthaven has tried to do with Stephens Media.
While Righthaven has lost three lawsuits on fair use rulings, the standing issue is equally critical in Righthaven cases.
Righthaven critics say copyrights are meant to be used for those creating and using news content for artistic and informational purposes – and that copyrights shouldn’t be bartered for financially-driven lawsuits.
In Righthaven's no-warning lawsuits, critics say even defendants with valid fair use arguments are coerced into settling by threats of website domain name seizures and statutory damages of up to $150,000.
Righthaven, however, maintains it was created to deal with rampant online infringements of newspaper material and the only people complaining about it are those in the "infringement community."
U.S. District Judge John Kane in Denver hasn’t yet indicated when he’ll rule on the standing issue in the Colorado cases. On May 19, he put all the Colorado cases on hold pending resolution of the standing issue.
Righthaven's Nevada lawsuits are similarly stalled as two judges have rejected Righthaven's standing to sue and two more are threatening to do the same thing.