Wounded Copyright Troll Still Alive and Kicking

Hugh Pickens writes "Steve Green writes that even as defendants who defeated Righthaven in court and won their attorney's fees complain they haven't been paid a total of $216,000 and try to seize Righthaven assets, the copyright troll proved that it is alive and kicking by filing a brief that District Judge James Mahan in Las Vegas was wrong to find an Oregon nonprofit was protected by fair use in posting an entire R-J story on the relationship between immigrants and Las Vegas police. A key factor in Mahan's decision was that the defendant, the Center for Intercultural Organizing in Portland, couldn't harm the market for a copyright to the story Righthaven obtained for lawsuit purposes from Stephens Media. Mahan also 'found that because the work was a news article, the totality of its content was informational and permissible for productive use by others,' Righthaven's outside attorney Shawn Mangano wrote in his brief that 'in reaching this erroneous conclusion, the district court failed to accord any degree of creative effort to the work (story) whatsoever.' In a second appeals brief, Mangano appeared to face an uphill challenge in arguing that Righthaven had standing to sue or should have been allowed to sue after amending its Stephens Media lawsuit contract to fix defects — assertions rejected so far by six Nevada judges. The defendants in the appeals have not yet filed their briefs, and it's likely to be months before the appeals court hears arguments on the cases."

Comments

SCO Redux

[Compaqt]

How many of you feel we're still going to be hearing about the ghost of Wronghaven for years to come?

Re:SCO Redux

[bmo]

If this is SCO redux and we're going to hear about this for 7 more years, I suppose we should shoot them now.

I give you the most censored routine in history.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyPFQKpRnd0

--
BMO

Don't confuse delaying making the payment

[salesgeek]

With a legitimate argument. Sure they are going to appeal. Because they are out of business if they don't.

Re:Shewtin's too good for 'em.

[Lumpy]

Judges used to be lawyers. So you are seeing a part of the Good-ol-boy network in action.

It's how cops that are dirty or evil get protected by other cops.

Re:Shewtin's too good for 'em.

[Baloroth]

Huh? Righthaven was ruled against, by multiple judges. They missed several deadlines to pay the fees, and US Marshals were ordered to seize their property (not sure how that turned out). To be honest, I'm not even sure how or why they can still file briefs.

If anything, Righthaven is an example of the legal system actually working more or less as it should: frivolous lawsuits get thrown out and the defendants get paid their legal fees. Or will, if Righthaven ever actually obeys the law.