Righthaven Liquified

It’s heartwarming to see a legal shakedown scheme stopped dead.

For those who don’t follow lawsuits, Righthaven is a company that was set up as a copyright collection agency. They searched for online quotations from newspaper articles, got the copyright transferred from the paper to Righthaven and then filed suit — lots of law suits. But Righthaven had no interest in the actual articles so the only thing they got in the transfer was the right to sue and according to the U.S. District Judge Pro that wasn’t enough to give them standing so one of their lawsuits, Righthaven v Hoehn was dismissed.

After winning the dismissal, Hoehn sought and was awarded legal fees which came to about thirty grand. Righthaven balked and delayed paying which led to Hoehn’s attorney, Marc Randazza, filing more motions and the debt grew. It became pretty apparent that the folks at Righthaven had no intention of paying so Hoehn’s next move was to ask the to court auction off Righthaven’s intellectual property which included about 275 copyrights. Based on the judge’s original ruling that led to the dismissal, these copyrights are worthless but if Righthaven no longer owns them, the dozens of other pending cases will be rendered moot. And they’ll make great souvenirs.

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