. . COPYRIGHT : LAW: CASES: DECISIONS : COMPANIES: NAMED COMPANIES: RIGHTHAVEN : CORPORATE TROLLS: Digital Freedom Group Gains Another Victory Over R-J, Righthaven . . Digital Freedom Group Gains Another Victory Over R-J, Righthaven By Steve Green (contact) Sunday 11 March 2012 3:04 p.m. Righthaven Archiveshttp://www.vegasinc.com/news/2012/mar/11/ digital-freedom-group-gains-another-victory-over-r/
A shorter URL for the above link: http://tinyurl.com/7k4tbwb . .Digital freedom group the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has won another victory against the Las Vegas Review-Journal and its copyright enforcement partner.
.On Friday, U.S. District Judge Roger Hunt in Las Vegas issued a declaratory judgment finding that the Democratic Underground did not infringe on the copyright to an R-J story when a user of the groups website posted to the site a four-paragraph excerpt of a 34-paragraph R-J story.
. The excerpt credited the information to the R-J and linked to the R-J. .In an age in which newspaper stories are regularly linked to by special interest websites, this post could be viewed as doing the R-J a favor by driving traffic to its website.
.But in this case, R-J copyright enforcement partner Righthaven LLC in 2010 hit the Democratic Underground with a no-warning lawsuit demanding $75,000 in damages and forfeiture of the Democratic Underground website domain name to Righthaven.
.The Democratic Underground, represented by the San Francisco-based EFF, attorneys at the law firm Fenwick & West LLP, and Las Vegas attorney Chad Bowers, fought back against Righthaven and hit R-J owner Stephens Media LLC with a counterclaim.
.The counterclaim charged Righthavens lawsuit resulted from a sham copyright assignment from Stephens Media to Righthaven. It said Righthaven which is not a law firm was doing Stephens Medias bidding in court in exchange for a cut of lawsuit winnings.
.Hunt eventually dismissed Righthaven from its own lawsuit, finding Stephens Media was the "real party in interest."
.Thats because the R-J maintained control of the story despite Righthavens claims it owned the story.
.In another Righthaven case litigated by the EFF, Hunt struck down Righthavens standard lawsuit demand that defendants forfeit their website domain names to Righthaven.
. . Case 2:10-cv-01356-RLH -GWF Document 179 Filed 03/09/12 LAURENCE F. PULGRAM (CA State Bar No. 115163) (pro hac vice) lpulgram@xxxxxxxxxxx JENNIFER J. JOHNSON (CA State Bar No. 252897) (pro hac vice) jjjohnson@xxxxxxxxxxx CLIFFORD C. WEBB (CA State Bar No. 260885) (pro hac vice) cwebb@xxxxxxxxxxx FENWICK & WEST LLP 555 California Street, 12th Floor San Francisco, California 94104 Telephone: (415) 875-2300 Facsimile: (415) 281-1350 KURT OPSAHL (CA State Bar No. 191303) (pro hac vice) kurt@xxxxxxx CORYNNE MCSHERRY (CA State Bar No. 221504) (pro hac vice) corynne@xxxxxxx ELECTRONIC FRONTIER FOUNDATION 454 Shotwell Street San Francisco, California 94110 Telephone: (415) 436-9333 Facsimile: (415) 436-9993 CHAD BOWERS (NV State Bar No. 7283) bowers@xxxxxxxxxx CHAD A. BOWERS, LTD 3202 West Charleston Boulevard Las Vegas, Nevada 89102 Telephone: (702) 457-1001 Attorneys for Defendant and Counterclaimant DEMOCRATIC UNDERGROUND, LLC, and Defendant DAVID ALLEN UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF NEVADA RIGHTHAVEN LLC, a Nevada limited liability company, Plaintiff, v. DEMOCRATIC UNDERGROUND, LLC, a District of Columbia limited-liability company; and DAVID ALLEN, an individual, Defendants. Case No. 2:10-cv-01356-RLH (GWF) [PROPOSED] FINAL DECLARATORY JUDGMENThttp://ia600509.us.archive.org/5/items/ gov.uscourts.nvd.75386/gov.uscourts.nvd.75386.179.0.pdf
. A shorter URL for the above link: . http://tinyurl.com/6qv46ho . ."THE COURT HEREBY DECLARES AS FOLLOWS: 1. That Counterclaimants Democratic Underground and David Allen have committed no volitional act giving rise to a claim for direct copyright infringement. Counterclaimants neither posted the excerpt nor encouraged the posting. Nor did they have any knowledge of the posting until after this suit was filed. See Religious Tech. Ctr. v. Netcom On-line Commncn Servs., 907 F. Supp. 1361 (N.D. Cal. 1995) (direct copyright infringement requires some element of volition or causation which is lacking where a defendants system is merely used to create a copy by a third party); see also CoStar Group, Inc. v. LoopNet, Inc., 373 F.3d 544 (4th Cir. 2004) and
Cartoon Network LP v. CSC Holdings, Inc,, 536 F.3d 121 (2d Cir. 2008). .2. That the act of posting this five-sentence excerpt of a fifty sentence news article on a political discussion forum is a fair use pursuant to 17 U.S.C. 107, and that the fair use doctrine provides a complete defense to the claim of copyright infringement from which this suit arose. Judgment on the Counterclaim is accordingly entered in favor of Democratic Underground and against Counter Defendant Stephens Media, LLC."
. . Stephens Media Could Face Legal Bill For Unleashing Righthaven by Wendy Davis, 5 hours ago Media Post Blogs The Daily Online Examinerhttp://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/170015/ stephens-media-could-face-legal-bill-for-unleashin.html
. A shorter URL for the above link: . http://tinyurl.com/7wy9pgo . .Two years ago, Stephens Media, parent company of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, tapped the startup Righthaven to sue bloggers, nonprofits and small publishers who allegedly posted news articles on their sites without licenses.
.Righthaven -- which filed around 275 lawsuits total -- claimed in court papers that it could sue because it owned certain rights to the news articles. Judges disagreed and ultimately ordered Righthaven to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to lawyers for some of the people it sued. Righthaven hasn't paid, which has resulted in defense attorneys seizing its domain name and other assets.
.Now Stephens Media might also be ordered to take out its checkbook. U.S. District Court Judge Roger Hunt in Nevada just issued summary judgment against Stephens Media in a case stemming from a Righthaven lawsuit against Democratic Underground.
. . Copyright Troll Righthaven Put In Their Place Nevada federal court decides to rule against Trollhaven lawsuit business By Shawn Hess Web Pro Newshttp://www.webpronews.com/ copyright-troll-righthaven-put-in-their-place-2012-03
. A shorter URL for the above link: . http://tinyurl.com/7cuqu36 . .The court system is sick and tired of organizations building businesses around petty copyright infringement cases. Righthaven is an LLC that has formed just for that reason. Essentially, once a copyright has been infringed upon, online newspapers sell the rights of the articles to Righthaven so that they may pursue the matter in court without involving the original publisher. Under this system, both parties stand to gain something.
.Just before the weekend a Nevada federal district court decided they have had enough of these type of nuisance lawsuits and decided to make it harder for trolls like Righthaven to profit off of them. Judge Roger Hunt, who presided over the latest Righthaven case ruled that the material in question is now considered fair use and therefor not infringement.
. snip .This case should set a precedent for others who seek to profit off petty infringements and discourage future lawsuits which tend to tie up court systems and punish those who have no intent on stealing other peoples intellectual property.
.Meanwhile, Righthaven has had the tables turned on them and various courts are seeking reparations for clients who have had to payout huge sums to defend against legal advances from the copyright troll LLC. Recently the CEO of Righthaven has had his bank accounts seized by the government and his assets auctioned off. Perhaps we have seen the end of petty infringement cases like these.
. . Righthaven criticized for missing hearing and briefing deadline By Steve Green (contact) Tuesday 6 March 2012 5:15 p.m.http://www.vegasinc.com/news/2012/mar/06/ righthaven-criticized-missing-hearing-and-briefing/
. A shorter URL for the above link: . http://tinyurl.com/7vxx6rb . .Newspaper copyright lawsuit filer Righthaven LLC was hit with more criticism Tuesday, this time focusing on what an observer suggested was disrespect for the court system.
.Righthaven on Monday, without explanation or warning, skipped a Las Vegas court hearing during which it lost control of its 278 copyrights and its trademark.
.Unless Righthaven successfully appeals, the intellectual property items will be auctioned to cover a portion of the $186,680 in legal fees Righthaven owes to people it sued people who then defeated Righthaven in court. The auction would be on top of the earlier auction of Righthaven's website.
.The copyrights had been used by Righthaven in some of its 275 lawsuits alleging copyright infringement a two-year lawsuit spree that has ground to a halt.
.The lawsuit campaign is stalled, perhaps permanently, because of rulings finding Righthaven lacked standing to sue over Las Vegas Review-Journal and Denver Post material or that defendants posting material online from those papers were protected by fair use.
.Also Monday, for the second time and again without explanation, the Las Vegas company missed a deadline to file the important opening brief in one of its own appeals in the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver. On Tuesday, a court clerk there gave Righthaven a third chance to file the brief, but warned that the appeal would be dropped if the brief was not filed by March 14.
. . Righthaven LLC v. Smith Loeb & Loeb LLP USA March 7 2012 . USDC D. Nevada, March 1, 2012 Association of Corporate Counselhttp://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g= 7d27d193-cdcf-4a2f-a70c-fbc891362612
. A shorter URL for the above link: . http://tinyurl.com/7e5my4t . .District court dismisses plaintiff assignees copyright infringement complaint in this and nine other cases, holding that plaintiff had not received, by assignment, the exclusive rights necessary to confer standing, and that subsequent agreements, executed after suit was filed, could not create standing.
. snip .The court granted defendants motion to dismiss (in this and the nine other cases), holding that plaintiff did not have standing to sue because the SAA did not transfer to plaintiff any of the exclusive rights necessary to maintain standing in a copyright infringement action. Section 501(b) of the Copyright Act establishes that only the owner or beneficial owner of an exclusive right under a copyright law has standing to sue for infringement. Although the different exclusive rights, as defined by Section 106 of the Act, may be transferred and owned separately, the right to sue is not one of those exclusive rights, and the assignment of a bare right to sue does not confer standing on the assignee. A party can only obtain the right to sue on a copyright if that party also obtains one of the exclusive rights in the copyright. Agreeing with other courts in the district that the language of the SAA grants Righthaven only the bare right to sue and deprives Righthaven of any of the rights normally associated with ownership of an exclusive right, the court concluded that Righthaven lacked standing and dismissed the claims for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.
.The court also rejected plaintiffs argument that additional agreements conferred on Righthaven the standing to sue.
. . UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT DISTRICT OF NEVADA * * * RIGHTHAVEN LLC, a Nevada limitedliability company, Plaintiff, v. BRIEN SMITH, an individual; and FULLTHROTTLETV.NET, an entity of unknown origin and nature, Defendants. ))))))))))))))) 2:10-CV-01031-LRH-VCF ORDER http://www.loeb.com/files/Publication/0a4db40a-fc28-41b7-87ed-a7aa2b2b4745/ Presentation/PublicationAttachment/ c732274a-30f8-4cfc-856f-b033a817c0bb/
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