Righthaven Archives
The gradual demise of copyright lawsuit filer Righthaven LLC continued Thursday, with a judge in Las Vegas threatening to dismiss seven more of its lawsuits.
Las Vegas-based Righthaven tried to profit with 275 no-warning copyright infringement lawsuits filed in the past two years.
Individuals, organizations and companies were sued over material they allegedly posted online without authorization after copying it from the Las Vegas Review-Journal and the Denver Post.
After initially winning what are believed to be hundreds of thousands of dollars in settlements, Righthaven now appears to be near death after a series of courtroom defeats.
The defeats centered on its lack of standing to sue as a copyright assignee and on defendants being protected by the concept of fair use in using material from the newspapers.
Creditors have seized Righthaven’s assets — including the very copyrights it sues over — and Righthaven has recently stopped participating in court hearings or meeting deadlines for the filing of briefs.
In its latest setback Thursday, U.S. District Judge Gloria Navarro ordered Righthaven to show cause within three weeks why the seven Righthaven cases she is handling should not be dismissed.
In her order, Navarro cited Monday’s order by another federal judge in Las Vegas, Philip Pro, transferring Righthaven’s interests in its 278 copyrights to a receiver so they can be auctioned for the benefit of creditors.
It’s believed that Righthaven can’t litigate its 45 remaining active lawsuits in Nevada and Colorado without the copyrights, because copyright ownership is needed to have standing in an infringement lawsuit.
Defense attorneys say the lack of copyright ownership means Righthaven also likely now can’t prosecute appeals of its courtroom losses in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco and the 10th Circuit in Denver.
That, however, may be a moot point because Righthaven lately has been missing deadlines to file briefs in both courts — an indication it’s given up litigating after its investors decided to stop pumping money into the company to cover its legal fees.
Navarro’s order to show cause was issued in Righthaven lawsuits against the Virginia Citizens Defense League, Thomas Chandler, the Hawaii Tourism Association Inc., Ryan Burrage, Inkosonic Networks, Isaac Rosete and Ecological Internet Inc.
Navarro’s order Thursday was ironic because she is one of a handful of judges handling Righthaven cases who has not yet ruled on the crucial issue of whether Righthaven had standing to sue under its copyright assignments from the Review-Journal and the Denver Post.
After Navarro refused to dismiss a heavily-litigated Righthaven suit against the Virginia Citizens Defense League in June, Righthaven hoped that either she or Judge Larry Hicks in Reno would revive its standing to sue after that standing was rejected by seven other judges.
Hicks, however, sided against Righthaven on that issue last week and now it appears Navarro won’t need to rule on the copyright assignment issue.
Just a few months ago, Righthaven was hoping a favorable ruling from Hicks or Navarro would induce investors to put more money into Righthaven and it could start filing lawsuits again to earn revenue. It now appears there’s no appetite by investors for Righthaven’s business model.