Posted on 12/22/2011 1:29:49 PM PST by Tom Hawks
The court-authorized dismantling of Las Vegas copyright company Righthaven LLC appeared to be under way Thursday, with the company losing control of its website to a receiver.
As noted by the Righthaven Victims website critical of Righthaven, the righthaven.com website on Thursday was no longer operational and that domain name was “parked” at domain name hoster GoDaddy.com — apparently so it can be auctioned.
Records at Network Solutions, which tracks domain names, showed control of Righthaven’s website domain name was transferred Wednesday to Randazza Legal Group, which represents Righthaven creditor Wayne Hoehn.
However, attorney Marc Randazza said that information was incorrect and that a court-appointed receiver, attorney Lara Pearson of the Rimon Law Group in the Reno area, had control of it.
“She will arrange an auction of it in order to satisfy some of Righthaven’s debts,” Randazza said.
Pearson added Thursday, “If all goes well, I intend to put the domain name up for auction before the holiday break begins tomorrow, though I have not yet made a firm decision as to where the domain will be auctioned.”
Righthaven since March 2010 has been suing websites and website users over unauthorized uses of Las Vegas Review-Journal and Denver Post material, alleging copyright infringement.
Several defendants including Hoehn fought back and defeated Righthaven in court.
After federal Judge Philip Pro in Las Vegas found Righthaven lacked standing to sue Hoehn and that Hoehn was protected by fair use in his posting of an R-J column on a website message board, Hoehn was awarded his legal fees.
Righthaven has refused to pay those $63,720 in fees, causing the same judge to allow a receiver to auction Righthaven’s intellectual property including its copyrights and website name.
The loss of its copyrights could cripple Righthaven’s ability to sue over the copyrights it obtained from the newspapers — and to prosecute appeals of its courtroom defeats involving those copyrights in Nevada and Colorado.
(Excerpt) Read more at VEGASINC ...
Sometimes the good guys do win.
awesome.
Glad to hear this.
Oh, it would be a sweet victory if a FReeper won the domain at auction and made it a conservative website. RightHaven would totally work for that purpose too :)
Those guys caused a lot a pain for a lot of minor players on the web who were just writing a daily blog or some other innocuous behavior. This was a shotgun rampage by RightHaven and they didn’t care who got caught up in their frivolous net or who they hurt. I hope the countersuits keep coming and victims go after the attorneys involved personally. Those shysters need to be hounded to the ends of the earth.
Righthaven ping
Thanks Tom Hawks.
That’s a good idea if they don’t have a trademark on “Righthaven” or could lose it.
Good riddance to bad rubbage.
Much welcomed FRiend.
Hey OV, you may want to ping your list also.
Righthaven RIP
“awesome”
It would be considerably more awesome if somehow the defendants could go after the Las Vegas Review Journal and its owners. They are the people that were actually behind RightHaven!
Now this is a real Christmas Present.
Not true.
You'd have a lot more creativity, it just wouldn't be owned by the government/corporate cartel.
It no longer requires a huge capital investment to publish a book or a music album.
Granting an artificial monopoly to big corporations just because they can buy legislation granting them that monopoly is criminal.
Not only go after the attorneys, but also the newspapers who had “agreements” with them.
Since Righthaven never really owned the copyrights, the newspapers did. And aren’t they liable for the illegal actions?
Go after the Las Vegas scum who started this. They have assets.
If the internet is used as an example of what really happens, it's pretty clear that the more writing space made available for people to write on the more writing will be done!
Frankly the age of "copyright" may well have come and gone. The Founders certainly never anticipated electronics.
Merry Christmas!...............
Great to see those who actually fought back against these bloodsuckers getting the win on this.
Does this mean Jim is no longer on their Christmas card list?
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