Righthaven Archives
Copyright enforcer Righthaven LLC’s amended lawsuit contract with the Las Vegas Review-Journal’s owner still doesn’t give it the right to sue over infringements of Review-Journal material, defense attorneys in two cases say.
The amendments of May 9 "do little more than re-arrange deck chairs on the Titanic," attorneys for Randazza Legal Group wrote in briefs filed Sunday.
Righthaven and Stephens Media LLC, owner of the Review-Journal, amended their lawsuit contract covering 212 lawsuits filed since March 2010 after U.S. District Judge James Mahan said the pact doesn’t appear to give Righthaven standing to sue.
In all, Righthaven has filed 274 lawsuits alleging copyright infringement against website operators, bloggers and message board posters over Review-Journal and Denver Post material.
Righthaven’s right to sue over Denver Post material also is being challenged in federal courts in Colorado and South Carolina.
Its lawsuit contract with the Post has not been made public, but it appears to be similar to the Stephens Media deal in that Righthaven licenses back to the Post rights to use copyrighted material it obtains from the Post.
In the Review-Journal lawsuits, Righthaven’s right to sue faces stiff challenges from attorneys for the Democratic Underground, Randazza Legal Group and others.
These attorneys say case law allows only the true owner of copyrights to sue over infringements and in these cases Stephens Media is the actual owner while Righthaven merely acts as a lawsuit mill. The lawsuit contract allows Stephens Media to continue to use the material generated by its journalists even after assigning copyrights for that material to Righthaven for lawsuit purposes.
The lawsuit contract amendments serve "only as a cynical attempt to obfuscate the unlawful nature of Righthaven’s enterprise," Randazza attorneys Marc Randazza and J. Malcolm DeVoy IV wrote in their filings Sunday. "Righthaven’s unlawful enterprise has been unmasked, and it is now making a desperate attempt to revive its litigation business model."
"Righthaven has no purpose for existence other than to sue on copyrights that it obtains only after finding evidence of infringement," their filings said.
"If Righthaven were the copyrights’ true legal and beneficial owner, it would not be necessary for Righthaven to give Stephens Media 30 days’ notice to use the assigned, already-infringed copyrights for any purpose other than litigation. Moreover, it would not give Stephens Media the unilateral right to buy back the assigned copyright before Righthaven could use any of the copyright’s exclusive rights," their filing said as they reiterated allegations Righthaven has deceived the Nevada federal court in its litigation campaign by unlawfully creating a copyright litigation entity with no actual assignment of intellectual property rights.
"Righthaven still has not acquired the copyrights it allegedly owns through Stephens Media’s fraudulent assignments," said their filings in the cases of Utah company Vote For the Worst LLC and Kentucky message board poster Wayne Hoehn.
Righthaven hasn’t yet responded to these filings.
But in his latest filing, Righthaven CEO and Las Vegas attorney Steven Gibson wrote: "At all times, it was Righthaven’s intent, through the execution of each particular assignment, to acquire from Stephens Media full ownership of a copyrighted work, along with the right to sue for past, present and future infringement of that work."
"Following such an assignment, the parties intended to permit Stephens Media to continue to display or otherwise use the assigned content through the grant of a license from Righthaven," his filing said.