Is This the End of Righthaven?

New submitter Serpents writes "The new management of MediaNews Group (owner of the Denver Post) decided to terminate their contract with Righthaven. So far, the infamous copyright troll has lost all the infringement lawsuits they've filed (although it seems they've managed to settle out of court in a dozen cases or so). Is it possible this will finally spell Righthaven's doom?" The new CEO of MediaNews said that while the copyright issues are real, the involvement of Righthaven was "a dumb idea from the start."

Comments

1 down

[Dthief]

30,000 trolls to go?

Righthaven V2

[Bob9113]

Is it possible this will finally spell Righthaven's doom?

I don't think so. I think that the founders of Righthaven have taken one approach at mining the flaws in the copyright system that have become so apparent with the advent of the Internet. They were told, "You did not get the contract right." From Righthaven's perspective, this is nothing more nor less than new market information. They have learned one of the angles that does not work. Every startup has cases like this.

The next step for a startup is to analyze the failure, consider alternatives, and develop a new approach. Of course, that depends on whether they have the operating capital to continue. They may have it in their war chest. If they do not, they would have to seek a new round of funding.

Can Righthaven find some angels or VCs that would be interested? I think the answer to that is a clear, "Yes." Investors want a return on their money. Copyright enforcement has been made extremely lucrative through more than a decade of increasing strictness and penalties. That vein of cashflow exists, and is waiting to be mined. Righthaven has some existing experience in the field. Now Righthaven asks you for funding. Suppose that you believe that this kind of copyright enforcement is not wrong, or that you are antisocial; what would you decide?

Righthaven will exist for at least as long as Darl McBride. And in the unlikely event that Righthaven itself closes its doors, a clone (or several) will rise.

When the government creates revenue opportunities, they get mined. That is what our economic system is designed to do. The only sure solution, assuming one wishes to change the outcome, is to remove the revenue opportunity.

Re:Yes it's the end

[MightyMartian]

And you can be sure that defendants who have spent their hard-earned money will be near the bottom of the list. And you can also be sure that the lawyers who created this obscenity made good and sure they were insulated from it. You can be sure that the company never had anything meaningful in the way of assets, so there's nothing for creditors to take a bite of. The lawyers who created Righthaven will still be practicing law tomorrow, will still be living in their houses tomorrow, still be driving their cars tomorrow, their wives and/or girlfriends will still be getting expensive manicures tomorrow.

That any legal system allows something like this to be perpetrated and affords the perpetrators the level of protection these shysters will get isn't worth a damn. Those guys should lose everything and should be thrown in prison and never ever be allowed to practice law anywhere in the United States ever again.