Denver Post owner not renewing Righthaven contract after PR debacles

Las Vegas Sun ^ | 09 sept 2011 | Steve Green

[rellimpank]

Newspaper copyright lawsuit filer Righthaven LLC of Las Vegas is losing one of its major clients, with MediaNews Group saying Righthaven’s no-warning lawsuit model "isn’t working very well for us."

MediaNews Group, owner of the Denver Post, disclosed in a Post story Wednesday it is not renewing its contract with Righthaven that expires at the end of the month.

The Righthaven lawsuit campaign over alleged infringements of material from the Las Vegas Review-Journal and the Post -- so far totaling 275 lawsuits in the past 18 months -- is stalled by legal challenges to Righthaven’s standing to sue.

Critics said Righthaven lied to federal courts in Las Vegas, Denver and Charleston, S.C., when it claimed to own the copyrights it was suing over – and the company has been hit with three fair use losses in Nevada.

[rellimpank]

-ping—

[rightwingintelligentsia]

In one case, Righthaven sued a young blogger with diabetes, autism and hyperactive attention disorder in North Carolina who had posted a TSA pat-down photo on his website. The blogger, Brian Hill, 20 at the time he was sued, said he found the photo on the Internet after it went viral there and he had no idea it was from the Denver Post.

Hill and his mother complained that when they said they couldn’t afford Righthaven’s $6,000 settlement demand, Righthaven threatened to garnish Hill’s Social Security Disability Insurance income at the rate of $50 per month for 10 years; and the international press freedom group Reporters Without Borders went public with an appeal to the Denver Post to call off the lawsuit.

Unbelievable.