U.S. District Judge Philip M. Pro of Nevada ordered Righthaven to surrender for auction the 278 copyrighted news articles that were the subject of its lawsuits.

"The copyright registrations to more than 275 works are in Righthaven’s name, can be transferred by this court, and can then be auctioned," the judge ruled. (.pdf)

The Righthaven.com domain was auctioned for $3,000 last year to help satisfy the legal bill the firm must pay to one of its defendants that prevailed in a copyright suit brought by Righthaven itself. The tab is more than $60,000 in the case before Judge Pro, and in total Righthaven owes about $200,000 to various defendants.

Judge orders failed copyright troll to forfeit "all" copyrights ]]> http://boingboing.net/2012/03/14/copyright-troll-stripped-of-co.html/feed 11 http://boingboing.net/2012/01/23/new-righthaven-offers-hosting.html http://boingboing.net/2012/01/23/new-righthaven-offers-hosting.html#comments Mon, 23 Jan 2012 21:40:58 +0000 Rob Beschizza http://boingboing.net/?p=140130 After snatching a notorious copyright troll's name at auction, a Swiss company is turning Righthaven.com into a web hosting service. The intended customers? Publishers worried about the kind of abusive legal threats spewed out by the domain's previous owner.

"The Swiss courts don't play games and registrars here cannot be scared," said Stefan Thalberg of Ort Cloud, an ISP based in Zürich. "Frivolous plaintiffs will find little comfort here."

With hosting in Switzerland and planned in Iceland, the new Righthaven promises "infrajuridsictional infrastructure" — in other words, uptime that would require international co-operation to bring down.

The announcement comes days after a fight over anti-piracy bills in Congress, described by opponents as a threat to free speech, culminated in websites shutting down in protest.

Through a partnership with U.S.-based first amendment lawyers Marc Randazza and Kenneth White, the new Righthaven says it will be able to vigorously defend itself in American courtrooms--and protect its clients from those who abuse laws such as the DMCA to stifle criticism.

Randazza was a frequent critic of the old Righthaven, fighting it in court and hastening its demise.

"Because most hosting providers deal with thin margins, and because legislation in the United States and elsewhere has made it cheaper to ignominiously freeze, cancel or boot clients rather than stand up for the legitimate fair-use of otherwise protected content, it is difficult if not impossible to find hosting providers willing to protect their clients from frivolous or overly aggressive take-down tactics," the new Righthaven says at its website.

On its official blog, it also sets out to name and shame competitors it sees as "jellyfish". An official account, @righthavened is live at Twitter.

OrtCloud is a Swiss internet service provider that focuses on financial and scientific companies. Its homepage advertises the "privacy-friendly, regulatory-havens of Iceland and the Swiss cantons of Zürich and Zug" beneath a photograph of the Swiss National Bank.

A recent report published by the Swiss government ruled against controls on file-sharing, and went as far as to desribe other countries' copyright enforcement regimes as repressive.

The new Righthaven insists, however, that it isn't in it to help people break the law: "There'll be no piracy, no torrent hosting." Thalberg said.

Given the established client list, it may be no surprise that Thalberg also said that it would not be in a position to act as a whistleblowing service, a la Wikileaks: "We focus on hosting expression that has traditionally been subjected to frivolous legal threats based on its content."

They will, however, accept adult content providers, which will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis "with an eye to being as inclusive as possible."

The original Righthaven, based in Las Vegas, tried to make a business out of licensing the "right to sue" from copyright holders, then demanding settlements from websites who had published even small excerpts of content. The business failed after courts took a dim view of the business model's legality and the specifics of some lawsuits.

One of Righthaven's most notorious strategies was to demand that victims hand over their own domain names in order to avoid lawsuits.

"The poetic justice, the karma ... it's wonderful," Thalberg said, adding that they intended to dedicate "significant resources" to abuse management and legal support.

After Righthaven's collapse, assets such as the domain name were auctioned off to raise money to pay creditors. Thalberg snapped it up for just $3,300, expecting a much higher price tag.

At first, only the updated "whois" info and a mysterious splash page offered clues as to the new owner's intent. The site partially uncloaked for last week's internet black-out, publishing a a satirical letter to Hollywood lobbyist Chris Dodd, assailing the former U.S. Senator with remarks amusingly-obscured by censorship bars.

The new site went live Monday with a FAQ that often reads like a manifesto:

"The daunting threat of meritless civil litigation creates the sort of chilling effect that would probably be flagrantly unconstitutional if attempted directly by the United States Government," the site states. "From a distance it almost looks as if a number of big-media lobbyists have root-kitted the United States constitution." ]]> http://boingboing.net/2012/01/23/new-righthaven-offers-hosting.html/feed 8 http://boingboing.net/2012/01/06/righthaven-domain-sells-for-3.html http://boingboing.net/2012/01/06/righthaven-domain-sells-for-3.html#comments Fri, 06 Jan 2012 22:41:10 +0000 Rob Beschizza http://boingboing.net/?p=137738 After a few days on the block, copyright troll Righthaven's domain name sold for $3,300 this afternoon. The funds go to creditors of the bankrupt firm, which tried -- and failed -- to build a business shaking down websites that excerpted content from its clients' publications.

We almost bought it just so we could redirect it at humorously-chosen sites, but it got a bit too racy for us around the $2k mark. The whois currently remains the law firm that seized it; if you won it, get in touch!

Previously: Righthaven in its death throes, domain going up for auction]]> http://boingboing.net/2012/01/06/righthaven-domain-sells-for-3.html/feed 9 http://boingboing.net/2011/12/23/copyright-troll-righthaven-in.html http://boingboing.net/2011/12/23/copyright-troll-righthaven-in.html#comments Fri, 23 Dec 2011 14:19:03 +0000 Cory Doctorow http://boingboing.net/?p=135645 Copyright troll Righthaven was conceived of as a way of extorting money from websites on behalf of newspaper owners when quotations from those newspapers were posted to the web. The idea was that the newspapers would assign "the right to sue" to Righthaven, which would pursue lawsuits on their behalf, and share the take. Righthaven's primary tactic was to shotgun legal threats to everyone they could find, regardless of whether their claims had merit, and then withdraw the threat when someone stood up to them -- classic copyright trolling.

Over the years that followed public interest groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation worked with Righthaven's victims and won a string of victories, in which Righthaven's ass was repeatedly handed to them (the death blow was probably when judges began to affirm that there is no licensable "right to sue" separate from other parts of copyright).

Now Righthaven is pretty much dead. They've lost control over their domain (assigned to one of their victims, who has become a creditor of theirs, since the court awarded him costs), gone broke, and are just waiting for someone to dump them in a pauper's grave. It's possible that one of their early investors will come back and rescue them, but that would be a miracle as implausible as the climax of the Smurf's Family Christmas.

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.”

Dismantling of Righthaven appears under way with loss of website

(Thanks, jacobcoakley!)

In August, the case Righthaven v. Hoehn was tossed by a federal judge in Nevada, who went a step further and declared that defendant Wayne Hoehn's complete copy of a newspaper article in a sub-forum on the site "Madjack Sports" was fair use. On August 15, the judge awarded $34,045.50 to the Randazza Legal Group, which represented Hoehn. Righthaven, which had spent so much time thundering to defendants about just how badly the federal courts would make them pay... didn't pay.

Instead, it filed a flurry of appeals alleging (among other things) that having to pay the money would involve "the very real threat of being forced out of business or being forced to seek protection through bankruptcy." Righthaven contended that it could eventually win the case on appeal and thus should not be bankrupted before it had the chance to make its case.

But the increasingly disorganized organization couldn't even get its appellate filings in on time. Yesterday, Righthaven had to admit that it missed the October 31 deadline for its opening brief in the case. It blamed the problem on a "misunderstanding," then noted it would need a few more weeks to actually write the brief, since "Righthaven’s counsel is scheduled to undergo a surgical procedure for which it is estimated that he will be recovering outside of the office for approximately one week."

US Marshals turned loose to collect $63,720.80 from Righthaven ]]> http://boingboing.net/2011/11/02/righthaven-copyright-troll-victims-send-in-us-marshals-to-seize-its-assets.html/feed 9 http://boingboing.net/2011/08/16/copyright-troll-handed-ass-again-tries-saddest-trick-ever-to-get-out-of-paying-its-victims-legal-bills.html http://boingboing.net/2011/08/16/copyright-troll-handed-ass-again-tries-saddest-trick-ever-to-get-out-of-paying-its-victims-legal-bills.html#comments Tue, 16 Aug 2011 21:33:44 +0000 Cory Doctorow http://boingboing.net/?p=113712 This time, they sued a user on a sports-book message board, who pasted two complete op-eds into a sub-sub board on the system. Not only did the judge rule that this was fair use (an eye-popping precedent in its own right), but it also ruled that, as usual, Righthaven didn't have any business suing the poster because they didn't own the copyright.

Here's where it gets even sadder: Righthaven then argued that it shouldn't have to pay the defendants' attorney fees because it didn't have standing to sue, so the court didn't have standing to order it to pay. The judge laughed and laughed and laughed. And told them to cough up $34,045.50.

Defense attorney J. Malcolm DeVoy was furious. "Righthaven deserves some credit for taking this position, as it requires an amazing amount of chutzpah," he wrote to the judge. "Righthaven seeks a ruling holding that, as long as a plaintiff’s case is completely frivolous, then the court is deprived of the right to make the frivolously sued defendant whole, whereas a partially frivolous case might give rise to fee liability. Righthaven’s view, aside from being bizarre, does not even comport with the law surrounding prudential standing."

The judge agreed. In a terse order today, he decided that Hoehn had won the case (as the "prevailing party") and "the attorney’s fees and costs sought on his behalf are reasonable." Righthaven has until September 14 to cut a check for $34,045.50.

This is the second case in weeks in which Righthaven has to pay Devoy and the Randazza Legal Group he represents. The first time, Righthaven sent its $3,815 check to the wrong address.