Posted on 07/15/2011 5:50:24 PM PDT by DeaconBenjamin
Yes, another day and another judicial smackdown for Righthaven. In the case before Judge Roger Hunt, where he dismissed Righthaven for its sham copyright assignment claims and threatened sanctions against the company, it appears that Judge Hunt was not convinced by Righthaven's grovelling, that it was all the fault of former in-house attorneys, who failed to disclose that Stephens Media had a 50% stake in the outcome of any of these lawsuits.
Hunt has gone forward with the sanctions, telling Righthaven to pay $5,000 for misleading the court. It seems that defendants in the 200+ other lawsuits now have reasons to ask for similar sanctions against Righthaven as well. In fact, part of this ruling was to get this information attached to every other Righthaven case:
Besides the $5,000, Hunt ordered Righthaven to disclose its original lawsuit contract with Stephens Media in active lawsuits over R-J material. He also ordered that a transcript of today’s hearing, in which he made several negative comments about Righthaven’s conduct, be posted on Righthaven court dockets.
Separately, Judge Hunt publicly bolstered the chances of the attempts to file racketeering charges against Righthaven, under the theory that the company was involved in the unauthorized practice of law:
“In the court’s view, the arrangement between Righthaven and Stephens Media is nothing more, nor less, than a law firm — which incidentally I don’t think is licensed to practice law in this state — with a contingent fee agreement masquerading as a company.”
The judge also blasted the arguement from Righthaven that forgetting to disclose Stephens' Media's interest in the cases was a mere oversight, by specifically calling out Righthaven CEO Steve Gibson:
Hunt noted it was Righthaven’s CEO, Las Vegas attorney Steven Gibson, who drew up the lawsuit contract between Righthaven and Stephens Media. Defense attorneys have said it was Gibson who signed off on some of the false disclosures and that Gibson is behind the entire Righthaven litigation campaign.
I wonder if Steve Gibson is still trying to peddle his line about how the judges think that Righthaven is "genuine," and that all these rulings are really about giving guidance to Righthaven copycats.
More Righthaven good news ping.
Good deal. Man, if we could get the Obamanation to pay $5000 every time they lie, we’d pay off the debt in no time.
is this fine just against the client or the attorneys PERSONALLY too?
Man, for all the well-deserved crap we sling at DU, its lawyers (and I’m sure they are legion) deserve a tip of the hat for taking this enterprise down.
Smack Down ping...
Black-robed tyrant! eh?
Why wouldn’t this apply to all the RIAA “copyright infringement” lawsuits? They don’t “own” all the copyrights. The movie and record companies give them the right to represent their copyrights, but from what I can tell, RIAA is not assigned 100% of the copyrights of all the media titles that they sue about. Same principle as the basis for this Righthaven judgement.
Deeper pockets and a battalion of lawyers with the RIAA as opposed to one “law firm” and a few lawyers for Righthaven.
Isn’t it about time someone gives the RIAA a trim in court?
Does this mean Righthaven is vulnerable to civil suit ? >PS
Hope the bastards go the same way that SCO did.
Vermin blood suckers.
Hope the bastards go the same way that SCO did.
Vermin blood suckers.
I do not know how the SCO court had so much patience with its antics. Things like dumping an unannotated printout of the entire source code of Unix when ordered by the court to disclose what it was alleging had been wrongfully copied. A judge with lesser patience would have called bull shiite at that point.
Can we sue to get our settlement back? Press charges? Anything??? =)
Poor Bob J, all that bloviation and going down in flames on FR for naught, lol.
It was a memorable threat to sue JR that got him zotted though, I’ll grant him that.
““In the court’s view, the arrangement between Righthaven and Stephens Media is nothing more, nor less, than a law firm — which incidentally I don’t think is licensed to practice law in this state — with a contingent fee agreement masquerading as a company.”
Isn’t the legion of lawyers that file suits after the Westboro Anti-Gay Funeral protestors get hassled, the exact same thing????? The lawyers get half, the church gets half. The lawyers are members of the church.
Yes, they do. Now, do you think you can get them to go after the Westboro Anti-gay funeral protestors' lawyers? Seems to me to be the same scam.
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