In the last year, newspaper copyright troll Righthaven has brought its dubious lawsuits in two states: Nevada and Colorado. (Update: a lawyer in South Carolina says Righthaven filed a single case there as well.) With a new ruling today from a Colorado federal judge overseeing all of Righthaven's cases there, courts in both states have now told Righthaven to take a hike—and to pay court costs before it goes.
Righthaven's business model has been based largely on suing small-time bloggers and forum posters who have copied articles or photos from the Las Vegas Review-Journal and the Denver Post. When threatened with a federal lawsuit for copyright infringement, many of these users decided to settle for a few thousand dollars instead. It turns out they needn't have done so, however, because Righthaven never had the right to sue them in the first place.
That's because the operating agreement between Righthaven and the newspapers only gave Righthaven a bare right to sue. But a Nevada judge overseeing numerous Righthaven cases looked at the agreement and ruled that there was no such right in copyright law and that only a true copyright holder could litigate in defense of its own works.
Today, Judge John Kane in Colorado came to the same conclusion in one of the numerous Righthaven cases he oversees there. In his view, the assignment of a bare right to sue runs counter to the constitutional goal of furthering progress in the arts and sciences—the stated justification for copyright.
"A third-party who has been assigned the bare right to sue for infringement has no interest in the legal dissemination of the copyrighted material," Kane wrote. "On the contrary, that party derives its sole economic benefit by instituting claims of infringement, a course of action which necessarily limits public access to the copyrighted work. This prioritizes economic benefit over public access, in direct contradiction to the constitutionally mandated equilibrium upon which copyright law is based."
Righthaven's claim against blogger Leland Wolf was thus dismissed; since the other Righthaven cases in the state involved the same question of standing, those all appear headed for dismissal, too.
Dismissal wasn't the end of it. "Furthermore, in light of the need to discourage the abuse of the statutory remedies for copyright infringement, I exercise my discretion under Section 505 of the Copyright Act and ORDER that Righthaven shall reimburse Mr. Wolf’s full costs in defending this action, including reasonable attorney fees," wrote Judge Kane.
Righthaven, which has been busy filing emergency motions to stay the $34,000+ it owes in a similar case from Nevada, now has to fight off another payment to the Randazza Legal Group, which has represented numerous Righthaven defendants.
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