Free Republic

Las Vegas First Amendment attorney Allen Lichtenstein has joined the initiative to shut down copyright infringement lawsuit filer Righthaven LLC. Lichtenstein said Friday he's signed on to represent the receiver who claims to control Righthaven and who plans to put an end to Righthaven pursuing appeals of its legal setbacks. After judges rejected its lawsuits and its assets were seized by creditors in December, Righthaven continued to operate solely to pursue those appeals. And as recently as June 22, Las Vegas attorney Steven Gibson publicly claimed to be the CEO of Righthaven and had openly hired an outside attorney to...

Copyright lawsuit filer Righthaven LLC of Las Vegas faced more problems Monday after a federal judge granted a defendant’s motion that Righthaven be placed under control of a receiver and that its copyrights be auctioned off, giving it nothing to sue or appeal over. U.S. District Judge Philip Pro granted the motion made by attorneys for defendant Wayne Hoehn, who said a receiver was needed to run the company and that its assets should be auctioned. That was after Righthaven failed to pay their attorney’s fees and U.S. Marshals were unable to round up enough Righthaven assets to cover their...

Hugh Pickens writes "Judge Roger Hunt has unsealed the confidential agreement between Righthaven and the Las Vegas Review-Journal that has allowed Righthaven to sue over more than 250 charities, impoverished hobby bloggers, reporters, and the newspaper's own sources, for $150,000 each in damages and forfeiture of the sites' domain names, and the contents of the agreement could end up being ruinous for Righthaven's campaign of copyright lawsuits. The problem is that Stephens Media, the company that owns the Las Vegas Review-Journal, didn't actually assign any of the rights related to copyright to Righthaven except the right to sue — and...

When it comes to fighting copyright theft in the news industry — the piracy of stories, editorials, columns, photos and videos — there are watchdogs and there are attack dogs. The Las Vegas Review-Journal and its copyright enforcement partner, a Las Vegas startup called Righthaven LLC, are squarely in the attack-dog category. In a strategic campaign that is attracting growing interest nationwide in legal and media circles, Righthaven — without warning — has sued at least 86 website owners in federal court in Las Vegas since March for copyright infringement. Such aggressiveness is unusual in the newspaper industry because most...

Copyright enforcement outfit Righthaven has filed some questionable lawsuits in the past, but really outdid itself in a case against Anthony Curtis, publisher of the Las Vegas Advisor. That lawsuit, one of several filed on Friday, alleges that Curtis infringed copyright by reposting an article from the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Problem is, that article was itself based on an annual survey conducted by Curtis of ticket prices for entertainment shows. Yes, Curtis went to the trouble of fielding a survey and then shared his findings with the newspaper, only to find himself sued for posting portions of the ensuing article...

Lawsuit Details RFC Case Number: C-R10-1356D Court Case Number: 2:10-cv-01356-RLH-RJJ File Date: Tuesday, August 10, 2010 Plaintiff: Righthaven LLC Defendant: Democratic Underground, LLC David Allen Cause: 17:501 Copyright Infringement Court: Nevada District Court

Righthaven, the company "grubstaked" by the Las Vegas Review Journal, which is basically going around suing any and every site that posts any of its content, continues to up the ante in abusing copyright law. Every week, it's filing more lawsuits. We've actually been hearing from some of the sites that have been sued, and many are lawyering up to fight Righthaven, because the claims are getting increasingly ridiculous. Righthaven appears to not take into account any of the context of the pages on the sites it's suing. For example, many of the sites it's suing involve users -- not...

The Righthaven lawsuits filed in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas at first glance seem pretty simple: They show bloggers, nonprofits and generally small-time websites around North America for years have been cutting and pasting entire Las Vegas Review-Journal stories on to their websites without authorization. That seems like obvious copyright infringement. But, as defendants with and without attorneys fight back in some of the cases, Righthaven’s claims don’t appear to be so cut and dried.... //snip ...On July 20, the freerepublic.com message board was filled with “here we go again” comments after users of the site learned it had...