Righthaven, a company formed in 2010, obtained agreements with newspapers to allow the company to sue online news distribution sources for copyright infringement. The company filed lawsuits in masse and often against many defendants at once and then extracted payments or obtained judgments from the alleged infringers. The company filed over 275 lawsuits.
Critics of this strategy called it “trolling” similar to the way in which a non-technology IP holding company might acquire patents for the sole purpose of extracting payments from those who infringe the patent. Newspapers saw this venture as a way to empower enforcement without investment in legal fees and distractions brought by litigation.
On June 14, 2011, a federal court ruled that Righthaven has no standing to sue for copyright infringement, on the grounds that the original parties retain the actual copyrights, and that Righthaven failed to disclose their financial connections to Stephens Media. http://www.vegasinc.com/news/2011/jun/14/judge-rules-righthaven-lacks-standing-sue-threaten/
Among other sanctions imposed by Federal District Court Judge Roger Hunt, Righthaven was fined US$5,000 for the misrepresentation. http://www.vegasinc.com/news/2011/jul/14/judge-fines-righthaven-5000-misleading-court-over-/
On September 8, 2011, the MediaNews Group, which is the publisher of a number of newspapers including the Denver Post, announced it was terminating its deal with Righthaven at the end of the month, and called it a "dumb idea". The new CEO of the company, John Paton, said he would not have entered into such a deal, had he been CEO at the time of the decision. http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/09/medianews-righthaven-dumb-idea/
The storyline to gets even more interesting. The company, stopped filing new suits against bloggers, then reports came out that the it may file for bankruptcy, as it was hit hard by a court order to pay over $34,000 in legal fees.
Now, PaidContent is reporting that the legal team, which was a defendant against one of Righthaven’s suits – in fact, the would be recipient of the $34K, is asking a Nevada federal judge for permission to take ownership of Righthaven’s assets.
The irony here is that Righhaven has sought the domains of publications it deemed offenders of copyright infringement in the past.
