5-Years Ago Righthaven Unleashed Copyright Trolling Operation; Gibson Still Practicing Law

Journalist Steve Green, formerly with the Las Vegas Sun and now with the Orange County Register, who worked tirelessly reporting the depths and doings and eventually the complete undoing of Righthaven LLC has written a long follow up five years to the day that Righthaven began its copyright trolling scheme. If you were a follower of this website from 2010 to 2012, back during Righthaven's "shakedown" lawsuit heyday, the memories will flood back ten fold, particularly Righthaven's numerous PR blunders and the key cases that defeated Righthaven and ultimately threw them into bankruptcy.

Some of Righthaven's worst PR blunders included filing their typical "without warning" lawsuits against a woman who had a blog that was written from a cat's point of view and mistakenly posted a Review-Journal article about a bird sanctuary. There was also the suit filed against U.S. Senate Candidate Sharron Angle. After being sued for posting an R-J editorial and story to her website, the R-J endorsed Angle. Righthaven's tide-turning PR blunder, however, was a lawsuit against 20-year old Brian Hill, a blogger from North Carolina who suffers a mild form of autism, diabetes and hyperactive disorder.

At Chapman forum, 'Righthaven' copyright outfit still controversial five years later

It was five years ago -- March 13, 2010 -- that Righthaven LLC launched its assembly line-like copyright lawsuit campaign over newspaper content. Righthaven is long gone, but the controversies it stirred up linger today.
Righthaven was a Las Vegas company created to sue over material copied without authorization from news websites, its partners being the Las Vegas Review-Journal and the Denver Post. Between March 2010 and June 2011 it filed 275 lawsuits over content from those papers in federal courts in Nevada, Colorado and South Carolina.
Righthaven was a company, not a law firm, and it ultimately fell apart after defense attorneys discovered it lacked authority to file the lawsuits.

See: Orange County Register article in full
See: Righthaven archives from VEGAS INC/Las Vegas Sun
See: March 2010 Righthaven lawsuits

VEGAS INC Provides Insightful Commentary and Back Story About the 'State of Righthaven'

Righthaven Hurts News Industry, One Ruling at a Time

Las Vegas Review-Journal columnist and former Publisher Sherman Frederick’s column today involving his “little friend” Righthaven could be Exhibit A in the case against Righthaven’s litigation strategy.
The case is this: Thanks to Righthaven, newspapers and other media organizations now have less copyright protection for their hard-earned content than they did just three months ago. And that’s more than a little odd, given Righthaven’s stated mission of protecting newspapers from online content infringers.

See: Article in full

This is a long and thoughtful piece by journalist Steve Green. The title encompasses only parts of it.

Stephens Media Hires New York Power Lawyer To Clean Up Righthaven Mess

Stephens Media has hired New York power lawyer Dale Cendali, a partner at the law firm Kirkland & Ellis LLP in New York, specializing in copyright law to help clean up the mess caused by their ill-conceived arrangement with Righthaven. Has Stephens media lost faith in Stephen Gibson and his band of misfit lawyers by hiring someone from the outside?

You also have to wonder why a lawyer with presumably an impeccable reputation would risk it all by associating herself with Righthaven? They must be paying her a lot and as Steve Green from VEGAS INC speculates most likely far more than Righthaven can ever recoup from these lawsuits.

See: Related VEGAS INC article

Righthaven Commandeers the Las Vegas Sun in Latest Lawsuit

The first Righthaven Lawsuit to come out since the damning revelations concerning Righthaven and Stephens Media's agreement was released to the public and the first since January concerning a Las Vegas Review Journal article was filed on Thursday against a Utah based website. In their filing Righthaven alleges that the site also posted stories from the Las Vegas Sun.

The Las Vegas Sun and their staff writer Steve Green is the main source for information concerning Righthaven. Righthaven has taken it upon themselves to speak for a competing newspaper of the Las Vegas Review Journal and commandeered the name of The Las Vegas Sun for their law-suit. The Las Vegas Sun can choose to fight their own battles if they so choose and do not need Righthaven to choose it for them.

See: Related VEGAS INC article

Something Fishy With Righthaven and The AP

A law website, law.com, is reporting that the Associated Press (AP) will not be dealing with Righthaven over protecting their copyrights. Dean Singleton who is the editor of the Denver Post and current chair of the AP has up till now been a strong supporter of Righthaven and it was thought that Righthaven would pick up the AP but what a couple of court losses and some very embarrassing high profile lawsuits such as Brian Hill of North Carolina make. Another bad move by Righthaven was to sue an AP affiliate, The Toronto Star, for posting the now infamous TSA image. Problem is it seems there were a number of AP affiliated papers that posted this image and credited the Photo to the AP.

According to Steve Green of the Las Vegas Sun other newspapers also recieved the photo and attributed to AP.

"We found the photo Wednesday on news sites including foxcharlotte.com, inforum.com, annarbor.com, deseretnews.com, heraldnet.com, washingtontimes.com and msnbc.msn.com, among others."

The question now being raised is how and why was the TSA image distributed by the AP and why the papers that printed it credited the AP and not the Denver Post? Why would Righthaven now sue a paper that printed this photo distributed by the AP if the Denver Post gave them permission? Or did they? So far no one has been able to explain this. This is a very serious matter because the distribution contributed to this image going viral. The Denver Post has some explaining to do on how the AP got this photo and if the AP had permission to distribute the Photo then why is an AP affiliate being sued and since the wide distribution of this photo encouraged it to go viral why did they sell the copyright to Righthaven to sue after it went viral?

These are very serous questions and should be raised by the lawyers involved defending Righthaven cases. This could even be the basis for a criminal investigation. Something is very fishy.

See: Related Las Vegas Sun article