Righthaven LLC -- a bottom feeding legal outfit -- has teamed up with the Las Vegas Review-Journal and Denver Post to sue mom and pop websites, advocacy and public interest groups and forum board operators for copyright infringement. The strategy of Righthaven is to sue thousands of these website owners, who are primarily unfunded and will be forced to settle out of court.
Righthaven lawsuitsTo date Righthaven has been ordered to pay $323,138 in legal fees and sanctions.Righthaven lawsuits

Thursday, August 11, 2011

Including Codefendants, There May be 500 Righthaven Victims; Codefendant Sends Mail

There is an accurate count of lawsuits filed by Righthaven (275)[1]; an accurate count of funds owed by Righthaven ($8,815) and an estimated count of funds seized by Righthaven ($350,000). There is not, however, a count of the actual number of persons sued in these lawsuits. In many cases, Righthaven names two or more persons in a lawsuit. Though there are unknowns, basic math after reviewing our internal spreadsheet shows an estimated 500 Righthaven victims.

A codefendant recently sent an email to Righthaven Victims alerting us to this overlooked fact. The Media Awareness Project (MAPinc.org) was part of the second lawsuit filed by Righthaven, the case against The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), first filed in March 2010. The source of the article in the lawsuit originated from MAPinc.org. After discovering this, Righthaven amended its lawsuit to include MAPinc and re-filed April 6, 2010 (No: 2:10-cv-0351-PMP).

The Media Awareness Project is a 501(c)(3) educational nonprofit that has gathered newspaper, magazine and web articles about drug policy since 1995. At the time of the lawsuit, NORML was a client and was able to display articles on their website under the indicia that originated from the MAPinc archive. While many followers of the copyright trolling group Righthaven LLC know how the NORML case settled, many do not know that this settlement did not include MAPinc.

The Media Awareness Project is yet another modest nonprofit sued by Righthaven and was fortunate enough to secure pro bono legal representation from Ridder, Costa & Johnstone LLP, a San Francisco-based intellectual property law firm. MAPinc ultimately settled with Righthaven on July 8 and August 3, 2010. Having just contacted Righthaven Victims now -- a full year later -- clearly the pain and difficulty of the lawsuit, even with pro bono legal representation, has not been forgotten.

[1] According to Vegas INC, Righthaven has filed 275 copyright infringement lawsuits involving R-J and Denver Post content. There have been 276 lawsuits if one counts a case about sports betting material. The lawsuit filing number in no way reflects the actual number of persons sued by Righthaven who wind up with disrupted lives, increased health issues and drained savings accounts.

2 comments:

  1. Righthaven has defied a judges order and perpetrated a NEW fraud upon the court:

    http://lawmedconsultant.com/2323/righthaven-ignores-a-judges-order-and-commits-fraud-upon-the-court

    ReplyDelete
  2. Admin

    It is looking like Righthaven has failed to compy with Judge Hunts orders and have missed their deadline. Your blog article shows they are not acting in good faith to comply.

    This will be a good reason for Judge Hunt to slap them down even harder.

    ReplyDelete

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