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Righthaven Hit With Class Action Counterclaim
Hugh Pickens writes "Steve Green reports that one of the website operators accused of copyright infringement by Righthaven has retaliated, hitting the Las Vegas company with a class-action counterclaim, charging that defendants in all 57 Righthaven cases in Colorado 'are victims of extortion litigation by Righthaven, which has made such extortion litigation a part of its, if not its entire, business model.' The counterclaim says Righthaven has victimized defendants by failing to send takedown notices prior to suing, by threatening to take their website domain names when that's not provided for under the federal Copyright Act, by falsely claiming it owns the copyrights at issue and by failing to investigate jurisdictional and fair use issues before suing, among other things. The claim seeks an adjudication that Righthaven's copyright infringement lawsuits amount to unfair and deceptive trade practices under Colorado law, an injunction permanently enjoining Righthaven from continuing the alleged unfair and deceptive trade practices, an unspecified financial award to the class-action plaintiffs for damages as well as their costs and attorney's fees."
Disbarment of the lawyers employed by Righthaven.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
...Die by the sword. Let's all hope it works out and Righthaven gets justly crushed.
PLEASE help them win this counterclaim! Seriously dude, I know you like a hands-off approach to parenting, but in this case we could really use your help...
weinersmith
Brownstein Hyatt -- apparently a firm that does a lot of business with the gaming industry. The thought of big Italian lawyers in pinstriped suits comes to mind, but to be honest my first thought was of an obscure single practitioner in California and my second was of the enormous firm of Morrison Foerstner. And yes, if you follow the link, that really is what the firm call themselves. With some justice.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
WTF Slashdot? I intentionally didn't make that a link, in case it is still working, and you go and make it one automatically? That's great. Can't make the comments system work without misplaced click handlers causing focus to jump everywhere, but you can auto-link goatse URLs. Great set of priorities you've got there...
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Claiming damages for copyright infringement in respect of material for which you do not own the copyright falls very definitely on the other side of the law. Righthaven have no more right to collect damages for this than you or I do.
That's what the concepts of bad faith and abuse of process are for. Exploiting the letter of the law to deceive and harm people via the court system isn't legal.
There need to be criminal charges filed against this asshole as well. But not before they bankrupt his ass legal expenses and judgments for his civil crimes. That way we wont be able to get anything buy a public defender for the criminal case and the civil attorneys will have done most of the research for the criminal prosecutor.
And I hope his lawyers are named as accomplices in both cases, so they can get bankrupted themselves; followed by disbarment by a federal judge, then end up in prison with him.
Keeping this assholes like these in prison would be a much better use of tax payer dollars than doing the same for a few pot smokers.
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
There's a reason it's basically a shell company, and doesn't own any of the rights...
Piercing the Corporate Veil
A court may pierce through the veil of liability protection if the corporation does not follow proper corporate formalities, if it is undercapitalized, or if it can be shown that it is a sham that was set up to defraud.
"You want to know how to help your kids? Leave them the fuck alone." -George Carlin
material for which you do not own the copyright ... Righthaven have no more right to collect damages for this than you or I do
If you're authorized by the copyright holder, you're pretty much free to do anything they can do, if I'm not mistaken.
Wrong. When dealing with copyright, you cannot transfer only the ability to sue. You can only transfer that in conjunction with one of the other exclusivity rights in Section 106 of the 1976 Copyright Act. You need to have some other interest in the copyright other than the right to sue. Silvers v. Sony Pictures Entertainment, Inc. makes that clear for the 9th Circuit (there has been some confusion on this and disagreement in other federal courts).
To quote 402 F.3d 881 on 883:
May an assignee who holds an accrued claim for copyright infringement, but who has no legal or beneficial interest in the copyright itself, institute an action for infringement? After analyzing the 1976 Copyright Act and its history, as well as the scant, although persuasive, precedent that is available in analogous situations, we answer that question “no.” Accordingly, we reverse the ruling of the district court, which allowed this action by the assignee to proceed.
and 884:
Accordingly, our starting point is the statute.
Section 501(b) of the 1976 Copyright Act establishes who is legally authorized to sue for infringement of a copyright:
The legal or beneficial owner of an exclusive right under a copyright is entitled, subject to the requirements of section 411, to institute an action for any infringement of that particular right committed while he or she is the owner of it.
17 U.S.C. 501(b) (emphasis added). The meaning of that provision appears clear. To be entitled to sue for copyright infringement, the plaintiff must be the “legal or beneficial owner of an exclusive right under a copyright.” See 4 Business and Commercial Litigation in Federal Courts, at 1062, 65.3(a)(4) (Robert L. Haig ed.) (West Group & ABA 1998) (“If a claimant is not a proper owner of copyright rights, then it cannot invoke copyright protection stemming from the exclusive rights belonging to the owner, including infringement of the copyright.”).
Section 106 of the 1976 Copyright Act, in turn, defines “exclusive rights”:
(1) to reproduce the copyrighted work in copies or phonorecords;
(2) to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work;
(3) to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending;
(4) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and motion pictures and other audiovisual works, to perform the copyrighted work publicly;
(5) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and pictorial, graphic, or sculptural works, including the individual images of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, to display the copyrighted work publicly; and
(6) in the case of sound recordings, to perform the copyrighted work publicly by means of a digital audio transmission.
17 U.S.C. 106. The right to sue for an accrued claim for infringement is not an exclusive right under 106. Section 201(d) refers to exclusive rights and provides:
(1) The ownership of a copyright may be transferred in whole or in part by any means of conveyance or by operation of law, and may be bequeathed by will or pass as personal property by the applicable laws of intestate succession.
(2) Any of the exclusive rights comprised in a copyright, including any subdivision*885 of any of the rights specified by section 106, may be transferred as provided by clause (1) and owned separately. The owner of any particular exclusive right is entitled, to the extent of that right, to all of the protection and re
The AC is right, but long winded. The short answer is the Judge should accept the case in question, look at the law, and issue a summary judgment.
Righthaven has the right to sue, however since they have no right to the copyright itself, there is no manner in which they could have had a loss. As such, the judge should dismiss the case as if it did succeed on merits, the loss is provably zero.
Righthaven hopes that the statutory minimums will let them claim that as a loss, however, the standard legal processes are in place until after the judgment of liability is made, and the case would fail before that point without regard to any statutory minimums.
Learn to love Alaska
It is perfectly acceptable to sue without prior notice.
You are confusing legal with acceptable. If you don't like your neighbor and there is a tree growing over the property line that you want cut down and you know he would like to keep, if you sue and the judge asks you if you even spoke with the neighbor regarding the issue, it's expected that the judge would dismiss the case without prejudice before hearing any testimony. He doesn't care who is right, if you haven't tried reasonable steps to resolve the issue, then he won't hear it. If you then talk to your neighbor and the issue isn't resolved and it comes back in front of him, then he'll hear it.
Or, in your terms, it's perfectly acceptable for the judge to dismiss all lawsuits presented before him that were filed without prior notice.
Learn to love Alaska