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Righthaven Defies Court In Domain Name Ruling
Hugh Pickens writes "Copyright troll Righthaven makes their money by coercing defendants of alleged copyright infringement into settling with them with threats of $150,000 in damages and forfeiture of the defendants' website domain names. Now EFF reports that Chief Judge Hunt of the federal court in Nevada, which is overseeing more than 200 Righthaven copyright cases, has dismissed Righthaven's merit-less claim to seize its victim's domain names. Righthaven contended that the mere hosting of any infringing material meant that the entire domain name was forfeit but the judge rejected that claim, explaining that the 'Court finds that Righthaven's request for such relief fails as a matter of law and is dismissed.' But now Righthaven has filed a new copyright case in Nevada federal court that not only demands forfeiture of the domain name but has asked the Court to 'order the surrender to Righthaven of all hardware, software, electronic media and domains, including the Domain used to store, disseminate and display the unauthorized versions of any and all copyrighted works.' The new complaint also asserts that Righthaven holds the 'exclusive rights' to Stephens Media news articles, despite the Strategic Alliance Agreement showing that Stephens Media retains these rights."
The fact that "Righthaven" are even allowed into court any more, in any jurisdiction, is proof positive that the justice system is broken.
Seriously, they need to start disbarring lawyers who repeatedly bring these meritless lawsuits to court. That's the only thing that's going to stop them from continuing to use the legal system as their own personal slot machine.
If the original claim was dismissed "without prejudice," that doesn't preclude Righthaven from starting it all over again. If that's what has happened, then what they're doing isn't defiance of the court as much as trying to buy their way out of a bluff, proverbially speaking. Granted, it's not too likely that they'll succeed, but the idea of asking for all the "offending" infrastructure along with the domain name is to put a Sword of Damocles over the heads of the defendants so that if they lose, they'll lose everything.
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
Righthaven is the copyright arm of the Las Vegas Review Journal...to give you an idea of the nuttiness we have to endure here in SinCity, keep in mind that the newspaper vehemently and viciously supported Her Wackiness Sharron Angle for Senate last year but then, in a grand showing of just how much they love their own wacky brand of libertarianism, sued her as a part of the Righthaven IP trolling campaign while continuing to donate money to her and devote editorial space to her campaign on a daily basis.
It had a strange beauty...like watching two warthogs fighting over a rotting squirrel carcass while mating.
My debut novel AMITY now available: http://jeremydbrooks.c
This reminds me of a bit of dialog from the movie "Thank Your for Smoking":
Joey Naylor: Dad, why is the American government the best government?
Nick Naylor: Because of our endless appeals system.
Is that the only thing that keeps people from shooting each other is the court system.
If you remove the trust that society places in the court system for dispensing significant amounts of justice, then courts are no longer the barrier between people with weapons.
Don't say it doesn't happen, because it happens all over the world.
Go ahead guys, keep abusing the system. First ones against the wall and all that.
I feel like I am living in France in 1788 and we are all arguing over mouldy bread and bad wine.
--
BMO
If you've got a judgment rendered in state court, the fed courts won't let you re-present the same case in federal court. The general doctrine is called abstention, and the particular variant is called the Rooker-Feldman Doctrine.
If they're jerking the same people around over the same subject matter, the federal judge will eat their face.
Start up the sanction motions!
Depends on your definition of merit. In all the cases the defendants did use copyrighted material. Most of the uses fall under fair use. That's not the problem as Righthaven can make arguments against it. They won't win but doesn't mean the suit is without merit. The problem is that Righthaven may not have standing to sue and has been told that. And yes you are allowed to say no to a client and the client can take their money elsewhere. The question is whether you want to take the case.
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There are multiple filing which should not be confused. The lawsuits that Righthaven have filed are about whether defendants have violated copyrights. Within each lawsuit the plaintiff and defendant can file motions. In this case RightHaven vs Thomas DiBiase, Righthaven filed a motion to seize DiBiase's domain name. Part of the suit, both DiBiase and RightHaven filed motions to dismiss different parts of the lawsuit. DiBiase wanted the judge to dismiss Righthaven's request to seize their domain name and RightHaven wanted the judge to dismiss DiBiase's counterclaims.
As mentioned above, DiBiase’s motion is limited to a request that the Court dismiss Righthaven’s demand for an order transferring DiBiase’s website domain name to Righthaven and for attorney’s fees.
The judge agreed with DiBiase about the domain name seizure and disagreed with RightHaven about the counterclaims.
None of this, however, has addressed whether the suit has merit. In new cases, RightHaven again has made a motion to the judge. The judge will probably be pissed that they made such a motion again; however, it still does not reflect whether RightHaven's case has merit. There is a difference between merit and remedy as remedy is what you expect should you win; it says nothing about whether you should win.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.