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US Marshals Ordered To Seize Righthaven Property
An anonymous reader writes "Troubled times ahead for Righthaven, as Ars Technica reports that the U.S. Marshals have been instructed 'to use "reasonable force" to seize $63,720.80 in cash and/or assets from the Las Vegas copyright troll after Righthaven failed to pay a court judgment from August 15.'"
and sell them at sheriff's auction.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
I'm assuming that any real money(if Righthaven wasn't itself the assetless shell company being used by the real money) will already have been snuck of the premises by various means, with nothing but a bunch of leased office furniture and a few cheap suits on site; but some days watching those who would crush others with the force of law having their stuff dumped into the street and sold off is just satisfying...
The cyclically-evicted members of the poor are all too familiar with the treatment; but we don't give it to the arrogant nearly as often as would be socially useful...
Take their domain, computers and women!
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
A few good whacks with Mjolnir would suffice.
This victory is relatively insignificant compared to the massive corporate extortion schemes from the likes of MPAA/RIAA, tech companies, and other industry giants, that go unabated.
Really?
1. Set up shell company.
2. Shake down people for easy money
3. Pay yourself lots of money immediately.
4. Let shell company go bankrupt.
5. Profit!!!
No question marks. This formula will be repeated over and over. Probably by the same people.
Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
go down to the local drug store, pick up a piece of posterboard, and put it on a stick (protest-style).
print out/draw/whatever a giant-sized version of nelson muntz from the simpsons pointing a finger at the onlooker with a giant "ha-ha" balloon next to him. stand outside their offices for an hour or two as their shit is getting thrown in the street.
for extra epic ironic insult win, get a friend to get another giant posterboard placard, and stand next to you. His placard should have an arrow pointing at yours and simply read "Copyrighted images used on these placards are protected by fair use laws of the United States."
It is my understanding that copyright trolls are supposed to have their faces either branded or tattooed with a scarlet trollface to prevent them from blending in with real humans, and ensure that all mankind can avoid and revile them.
but some days watching those who would crush others with the force of law having their stuff dumped into the street and sold off is just satisfying
Retribution does satisfy the primal urges, but it doesn't help me all that much (as a member of this society).
I want to be able to search a database of scumbags - their name, dob, and known mailing addresses, so I can avoid ever getting into a business transaction with them. The US Marshalls stealing their copy machine doesn't actually help society in any meaningful way.
Retributive justice is deeply ingrained in human society, but we have the tools to progress beyond that now.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Really?
1. Set up shell company.
2. Shake down people for easy money
3. Pay yourself lots of money immediately.
4. Let shell company go bankrupt.
5. Profit!!!
No question marks. This formula will be repeated over and over. Probably by the same people.
You should probably read up on the case a little more. For one thing, in order to pursue the cases they ended up having to transfer actual ownership of patents/copyright to Righthaven. ALL the intellectual property is potentially up for seizure if they don't have enough other assets to cover. Those companies are shitting themselves right about now.
Setting up a shell company like that is fraud, textbook almost. It doesn't shelter anything, and could open the actors up for even more liability and possible criminal charges as well.
I used to know a guy that had become a millionaire using the "calculated risk" model.
He created bunch of B2B "information" and "benefits" products that were really just marketing copy in large volumes. He'd pay online contract workers $pennies to create both the marketing and the essentially nonexistent/useless product that amounted to a website with a login and a search box (that didn't show results for much of anything) and a lot of graphics of people playing golf and enjoying themselves and sitting and desks being productive and other $1 microstock-style photos.
He'd then sell annual contracts to corporations for $hundreds of thousands or even $millions. Eventually in the case of each "business" than he started there would be legal action from one or two clients, but he always settled and many more clients just wrote it off and didn't "renew" the subscription to the "service" the following year.
Of course, the following year there would be another service on the market, different name, different website, different graphics, different "product," same quality level.
What made it work for him was the way he presented in person—professional, gregarious, confident, with a great suit and a great golf game.
The man was a millionaire many times over and I'm glad I don't know him anymore.
Can you cite where the copyrights were transferred to them?
As I recall that was the whole point of the issues to begin with, was that they were suing without ownership.
I will be very amused if a third party that's friendly to fair use ends up owning the IP of a trollish company that willingly licensed the IP to Righthaven...
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
It's a transliteration. There are a half-dozen "correct" spellings. If you're going to be a pedant, at least bother to make sure you're correct.