Slashdot Mirror
Auction of Copyright Troll Righthaven's Website Underway
Tootech sends this quote from Vegas Inc:
"The online auction of the righthaven.com website domain name got underway Monday, with bidders having until Jan. 6 to submit offers. A judge has authorized a receiver to auction the intellectual property of Las Vegas-based Righthaven LLC, the newspaper copyright infringement lawsuit filer. The auction is aimed at raising money to cover part of Righthaven's $63,720 debt to a man who defeated Righthaven in court. The man, Wayne Hoehn, and his attorneys defeated Righthaven when a judge threw out Righthaven's lawsuit against him over Hoehn's unauthorized post on a sports betting website message board of a Las Vegas Review-Journal column by columnist and former publisher Sherman Frederick. Hoehn was a defendant in one of Righthaven's 275 lawsuits filed since March 2010."
the more that needs to be sold to pay the debt.
Goatse mirror, for obvious reasons.
Because they might have an idea that uses a domain called RightHaven? Perhaps a RPG game, perhaps a software application for big business. Who cares - as long as the company is getting gutted to pay for the money it has to cover.
Having said that, I am personally much more interested in finding out whether once the IP within that shell of a shell company runs out and the money is still missing, whether Big Media will be covering the shortfall as they were clearly setting the operation up as a source of income. Surely they will be held liable for the shortfall? Can I get this as a late Christmas present from the US justice system?
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
Set up an anti-patent advocacy group?
Check out my sci-fi book "Lacuna" at http://goo.gl/MVxX8
... but why would you want to buy righthaven.com? Really, what possible value could it have?
Righthaven owe a lot of money due to losing the court case and being ordered to pay costs, but they don't have many assets to sell to cover those costs. By purchasing the domain name you would, in a sense, be donating to the person who fought Righthaven in court and won - doing us all a favour in the process.
Peace,
Andy.
This is like any other auction. They have something you may want, and by auctioning it you see if you can get it for the price people are willing to pay. Quite often in cases of bankruptcy or debt recovery the item being auctioned off can be tremendously undervalued.
Recently we went to the auction of a glass manufacturer. Most people were there looking for glassing equipment to boost their own businesses. Things like forming and cutting machines were being bided up quite high. But then they came to old stock. Seems like there weren't too many people interested in it so we picked up 50 sheets of hardened pool fencing glass for $50. They normally cost $160 per sheet. Bargain, we now have a new fence.
This isn't about the company. It's about you, your ideas, and what you could do with the assets of the company. If you have a use for the name "RightHaven" then now is THE time to buy the domain. Chances are if you wanted it and approached the company for it they may have said flat out no, or asked for some extortionate price. Now that they must sell you could potentially get it for a bargain since the name no longer has any value to the company.
Depends if you have a product or a company called RightHaven. Just because it belonged to one company doesn't mean there isn't some other company very interested in the name. The most classic example of this would be www.nissan.com which any reasonably person would think took you to the website of the car manufacturer.
It may differ in your local territory, but here when you go into receivership, it is no longer your debt. You lose everything to the receiver who then attempts to salvage some money for the debtors of the company. Mr Hoehn is owed $63 grand. He might be lucky to see 20% of that, so any money raised is his (and any other debtors, not RightHaven's.
I'd buy it just for the lolz, if I could find the damn link where you can actually post an offer.
Minimum bid as of this posting is $1900. Snap Names
You know what, you're right. This ended "way too fast". Look at SCO - someone(s) funded that zombie forever. Here they're doing the opposite strategy. "Ha Ha, if we win, be strike gold, if we lose, oops, we had no assets."
I'd like this to be bought by someone with a BIG pocket and use it to go after when the media companies themselves decide wholesale infringement is just dandy.
Really, they crumbled for just 60K+ ? Really? Tell me which species of fish that is smelling here. Red Herring?
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
My name is Rig H. Thaven. This is perfect!
I find it insightful to see a "company" like this who was going after MILLIONS in so-called damages, is suddenly struggling to pay a paltry $64k debt. And all I can say is... BWAHAHAHAHA! There *can* be justice in this world.
You are wrong, this is actually a case of _injustice_, brought to you by the corporate system and the inherent liability asymmetry that it creates. Think about it, Mr. Hoenh is owed $64k, most of which would be for his legal costs - costs that he rightfully deserves to recover since his time was wasted by this frivolous lawsuit. Instead, Mr. Hoenh in all likelihood will have to suffer an injustice because righthaven inc./corp./whatever will be unable to satisfy this debt and the person pulling the strings behind Righthaven will not be personally liable unless Mr. Hoenh goes to court again to pierce the corporate veil, thus incurring even more legal costs. IMO, Hoenh's court award will turn out to be an empty judgement and much cold comfort to him.
I could see EFF buying it and having the domain forward to their main site. Sort of a trophy domain.