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Righthaven Ordered To Turn Over Hard Drives To Creditors

Posted by timothy on from the reversal-of-fortune dept.

Hugh Pickens writes "Remember Righthaven? Steve Green writes that the copyright troll who partnered with the Las Vegas Review-Journal and the Denver Post to file 275 no-warning copyright infringement lawsuits in 2010 and 2011 against parties that used content from those papers without authorization has just been ordered to turn over to a creditor hard drives from its computers so the creditor could determine if Righthaven has any assets that can be liquidated for the benefit of Righthaven's creditors. Federal judges in three states rejected Righthaven's lawsuits because the company lacked standing as the newspapers — not Righthaven — maintained control of the material Righthaven was suing over. Some defendants were also cleared by the fair use doctrine in copyright law. In the aftermath of Righthaven's legal debacle, the company shut down and claimed to be broke. Creditors in another case seized its website and trademark and auctioned them. They also seized the copyrights it sued over, but they didn't sell. Meanwhile Kurt Opsahl, an attorney for the EFF, has for months been urging Judge Peggy Leen to hit Righthaven CEO Steven Gibson with 'coercive sanctions' for Righthaven's failure to turn over information that will help the EFF find Righthaven assets. 'Steven Gibson is now going to have to show some responsibility,' said Opsahl after the judge issued a court order that could cost its CEO a fine of $500 per day for non-compliance. 'The CEO of Righthaven remains responsible for taking care of the business of the company.'"

11 of 51 comments (clear)

  1. one more asset by qbast · · Score: 5, Funny

    How about seizing and auctioning CEO?

    1. Re:one more asset by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      He's an asshole, not an asset..

  2. Re:Brevity in Summaries by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 3, Funny

    Beware meaningless Capitalisation and lack of Punctuation.

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
  3. That's weird by fustakrakich · · Score: 3, Interesting

    If a judge wants to take something of mine, he'll send a cop to come and take it. Why isn't that happening here? Do the banks wait for a house to be 'turned over' when they forecloses on it?

    --
    “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    1. Re:That's weird by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      If a judge wants to take something of mine, he'll send a cop to come and take it. Why isn't that happening here? Do the banks wait for a house to be 'turned over' when they forecloses on it?

      Actually that's not necessarily true.

      If The State has a judgement against you then that is true. But... As someone who has been issued a small settlement in a legal dispute I can say that the courts will issue you a judgement, but it's up to YOU to figure out how to collect it. Now YOU, armed with a court order can certainly show up on their doorstep with the local sheriff and start hauling off stuff. Provided that the company isn't in bankruptcy and there are more than one of you to fight over the spoils, that's what bankruptcy court is all about, to determine who gets what. Sure you get your judgement but it's still up to you to collect it, the courts won't collect it for you. And once a company has gone out of business and has no legal address then you are just plain SOL, you have a judgement against an entity that no longer exists. Unless it's worth it to you to hire a private investigator to try and track down where all the money/property has been hidden. And you can't just show up on the CEO's doorstep either. That's the whole point of forming a corporation, to shield the rich people running them from having THEIR personal assets seized for the corporation's bad business decisions.

      Besides, what do you think this Steve person has been doing the last six months anyway? He's been hiding any assets that do remain in offshore banks. Those hard drives have long been wiped in order to destroy any evidence of illegal activity.

  4. Re:Reasons for rejection by Rockoon · · Score: 2

    Why doesn't this apply to cases brought by the **AA associations over copyright material controlled by others (e.g. recording corps)?

    ...because the **AA's have the right to represent the recording labels...

    ...in fact, the **AA's were created by the recording labels to represent them.

    --
    "His name was James Damore."
  5. Re:Rights management by rtfa-troll · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ...the company lacked standing as the newspapers — not Righthaven — maintained control of the material Righthaven was suing over.

    [Creditors] also seized the copyrights it sued over...

    Wait, what? Am I missing something here?

    Sure; There is almost no limit to how badly your lawyers can screw up if they try to be too clever. The company was attempting to do something illegal. Get to act as the copyright holder without having the responsibilities of the copyright holder. Unfortunately, they screwed up completely, and ended up achieving the reverse of what they wanted. They failed to transfer the right to sue, but they managed to transfer the actual copyrights (though presumably still with a license back to the newspapers the articles came from).

    Future lawsuits about this material may well be very very "interesting".

    --
    =~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
  6. Re:Oh wow... by hairyfeet · · Score: 3, Informative

    They have a similar scam going on with all those natural gas wildcatters that are doing the fracking. you see the actual NG company doesn't "own" anything, they lease everything from the equipment to the copier from a shell corp they set up. if they cause a nasty mess, get sued for not paying out the mineral rights or damaging adjacent property? They just burn the company, after all on the books it shows that have zero assets and nothing but debt, then they just start a new company and lease the stuff back from the shell corp.

    I have no doubt Righthaven did something similar, I bet the only things they had on the books was the website and some office equipment. This is just another way the system is completely broken, the laws have been written by sleazy lawyers that make sure they leave loopholes that only they and their rich friends can really afford to use but which when called upon means they can just walk away at any time without having to pay shit. I bet if you look at their books and compare it to what is owed they'll be lucky if they get a half a cent on the dollar, hell I wouldn't be surprised if the EFF doesn't get a red cent.

    This is why you can really "win" in court against these kind of bums because when its all said and done they can just start another company and learn from their mistakes and do it all over again and all you'll have to show for winning is a worthless judgement and a bunch of lawyer fees.

    --
    ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
  7. To Paraphrase HL2 by wallsg · · Score: 2

    We Don't Go to Righthaven

  8. Escaping liability while retaining profits... by girlinatrainingbra · · Score: 2
    Two other scenarios where similar things are done to escape liability and the ability to be sued while making sure to retain the profits as maximally as possible (second-hand FOAF's-parents' business whinings overheard about not being able to sue or losing money in investments):

    .

    -- Land / real-estate developers form limited-time-extent limited liability corporations to buy the land and other LLCs to develop it and pay each other fees (to maximise profits). As soon as the last house is built, a shell corporation may be formed to hold onto control of the home-owners association / condominium association until the first meeting where the home-owners/condo-owners elect their own board and take over. Then, it's like Keyser Soh-zay (sp?), poof, they vanish like they never existed. And in terms of corporate-person-hood, they no longer do exist to be sued or sue-able. So when the home-owners find out that there was shoddy construction and other problems, there's no one to sue or to recover damages from. Egregious e.g., Trump, claims to make money, licenses his name to skyscraper apartments as in San Diego downtown, burns his losses in bankruptcy, and writes another book about how to become a real estate millionaire. (my tldr opinion for his book: steal other peoples' money is how to become a millionaire in real estate)

    .

    Hollywood-movie-productions - even though there's a production company, there will be a limited time extent corporation formed for each film made so that consulting fees and production fees and lease fees can be paid to the shell companies owned by the profit-takers, while the idiots who signed on to finance and receive a share of profits also lose out. (Hint, always get gross points, net points are for chumps and chimps)

    Also, all of the cameras / lenses / production equipment used on set is all highly-insured and always seem to be "damaged beyond repair" during filming (or most conveniently, at the end of filming.)

    And then don't forget about the idiots who signed on for a cut of the "net profits" which Hollywood Accounting shows never exist: no movies in the history of hollywood after a certain year has ever shown a profit. After you put in all the consulting fees and promotion fees, etc, even Forrest Gump and the Star W*rs franchises never officially made any profit at all!

  9. Re:GRC? by burning-toast · · Score: 2

    Steven A. Gibson CEO in this article:
    http://www.dickinson-wright.com/ourpeople/pages/person.aspx?person=96835d9d-f7d2-430e-a836-92977532ec50

    Steven M. Gibson GRC CEO / programmer:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Gibson_(computer_programmer)

    Posting this here since that was the first Steve Gibson I thought of too...

    - Toast