Judge Mahan Dismisses Case Against Pahrump Life Blog; Offers Few Comments

Judge Tosses Another Righthaven Copyright Lawsuit

U.S. District Judge James Mahan dismissed a long-running suit alleging the Pahrump Life blog infringed on a Righthaven copyright when the blog posted without authorization a Las Vegas Review-Journal story.
Mahan ruled Righthaven lacked standing to sue under its copyright assignment for the lawsuit under its original lawsuit contract with R-J owner Stephens Media LLC. Three other federal judges in Nevada have dismissed Righthaven lawsuits for the same reason.

See: Related VEGAS INC article

Mahan oddly dismissed the case without prejudice (meaning it can be re-filed), stating: "I want people to have their day in court." Otherwise, he did not comment on any rhinoceros in the room issues.

Righthaven Continues to Fight Attorney's Fees; Case Against UK Website Operator Dismissed

Righthaven Fighting Demand for Attorney’s Fees

U.S. District Court Judge Philip Pro in Las Vegas on June 20 found Kentucky resident Wayne Hoehn was protected by fair use in posting an entire Las Vegas Review-Journal column on a sports website discussion board; and that Righthaven didn’t have standing to sue over the post. Righthaven is appealing.
Hoehn’s attorneys, in the meantime, are seeking recovery of their $34,000 in fees, saying Hoehn stood up to what they called Righthaven’s bullying lawsuit tactics and won a victory for fair use and free speech.
-- snip --
U.S. District Judge James Mahan in Las Vegas dismissed a Righthaven lawsuit against Garry Newman, who is a resident of Great Britain and is associated with facepunch.com.

See: Related VEGAS INC article

Newman though, is still not free of Righthaven. Upon Mahan's dismissal of his case -- due to Righthaven's failure to respond by the deadline to Newman’s dismissal motion -- Righthaven responded with an emergency motion for reconsideration. In a separate case involving the R-J Vdara hotel "death ray" story, Mahan refused for a second time to dismiss a lawsuit against Azkar Choudhry and Pak.org. It is anticipated that Mahan will eventually dismiss that case based on lack of standing.

Righthaven and Stephens Media Amend Strategic Alliance Agreement

In what amounts to an admission that the Strategic Alliance Agreement that governs the copyright assignments between Righthaven and Stephens Media was wholly inadequate and puts to even further question every lawsuit regarding those involving Stephens Media prior to Monday and could also implicate those regarding the Denver Post if Media News have a similar arrangement.

U.S District Judge Mahan, presiding over a case in Nevada, has given Righthaven notice they must show cause why at least one lawsuit should not be thrown out based on Righthaven's standing to sue. The fact that Righthaven and Stephens Media has seen fit to change their agreement severely weakens their argument and now opens up both entities to potentially massive liabilities.

See: Related VEGAS INC article

Top Lawyers Ask To Be "Friends of Court" In Pivotal Case Against the Pahrump Life Blog

Lawyers Ask to Participate in Potentially Pivotal Copyright Case

Attorneys representing Righthaven defendant the Democratic Underground and another group of attorneys representing the Media Bloggers Association asked U.S. District Judge James Mahan in Las Vegas on Friday for permission for the Democratic Underground and the bloggers group to participate as friends of the court in the Pahrump Life case.
They sought to participate by filing briefs and potentially appearing at Pahrump Life hearings.

See: Article in full

Related posts:
Judge Doubts Righthaven's Right to Sue; Orders Righthaven to Show Cause (Again)
The Media Bloggers Association Intervenes on Behalf of Righthaven Defendant

Social Media Law Newsletter by Morrison & Foerster Examines Righthaven Lawsuits

Socially Aware: The Social Media Law Update - Vol. 2, Issue 2 - April 2011
Socially Aware, a Morrison & Foerster social media newsletter, recently examined Righthaven's copyright lawsuits. In the April 2011 issue (Vol 2, Issue 2) the ninth article, "The Rise (and Possible Demise?) of Copyright Trolls," covers the history of Righthaven's lawsuits up to the most recent news, including the CIO ruling by Judge Mahan and the unveiling of the Strategic Alliance Agreement.

It's a well researched piece, packed with hot links as well. This is a great piece to share with persons new to Righthaven's copyright lawsuits. The newsletter is freely downloadable at the JDSupra website.

Simultaneously, the Intellectual Property Brief newsletter published an article, "Why Comprehensive Copyright Education is Necessary in United States K-12 Education Curriculum." In addition to being scary, the article unwittingly highlights the horrendous complexity of current U.S. copyright law.

Steve Green of the Las Vegas Sun: Lawsuits Reduce Protections for Newspapers

Righthaven Lawsuits Backfire, Reduce Protections for Newspapers

U.S. District Court for Nevada Judge James Mahan, in striking the latest fair use blow against Righthaven on Friday, announced a decision that to me would have been unthinkable one year ago: A nonprofit was protected by the fair use doctrine in posting an entire Review-Journal story without authorization.
--snip--
If this decision is adopted by other judges and upheld on appeal, it would mean any nonprofit could post without authorization entire stories from the Las Vegas Sun or any other newspaper -- and presumably television and radio reports as well...

See: Article in full

[The New York Times recently announced its paid subscription model. Subscription revenue instead of "suing their audience" revenue like the Denver Post and Review-Journal have undertaken.]

Former Righthaven Defendant, Michael Nystrom, Shares Story After Case is Dismissed

After Judge Mahan dismissed the case against Michael Nystrom, the owner and operator of DailyPaul.com, he created a blog post about the experience. Nystrom's story provides a first-hand telling of what being sued by Righthaven encompassed for him. He offers details about his case, other cases and hard-earned insights into Righthaven's shakedown business model. We thank Michael for sharing his account. Most other defendants either can't share their experience or are too afraid to.

Righthaven vs. Michael Nystrom / Daily Paul DISMISSED by Federal Judge

By Michael Nystrom
Last Tuesday U.S. District Judge James C. Mahan ordered the dismissal of Righthaven's lawsuit against me and the Daily Paul. As you may recall, copyright troll and legal terrorist Righthaven sued me on August 31st of last year, demanding $75,000 and forfeiture of this domain name to them. I first learned of the action from Steve Green of the Las Vegas Sun, Las Vegas's good newspaper. Righthaven itself is a partnership between seedy Vegas lawyer Steve Gibson and Vegas's evil newspaper, the Las Vegas Review Journal. They have combined forces to shakedown unsuspecting bloggers in a last gasp attempt to secure revenue for the dying newspaper industry, using a suspect "business model" that goes like this:

Step 1: Righthaven uses its "proprietary technology" (probably Google) to look for potentially infringing LVRJ content that has been reproduced on third party blogs or websites. In my case it was less than half of an article by a faux libertarian LVRJ columnist that was uploaded to the Daily Paul by a member of the DP community...

See: Article in full

Hats off to Michael Nystrom! May you now get back to the business of running DailyPaul.com!

Righthaven Challenges Lawsuits; Updates on Multiple Cases

The Las Vegas Sun provides updates on a number of cases that Righthaven is challenging, including: Bill Hyatt (and the Media Bloggers Association's attempted intervention), the Democratic Underground, message-board poster Wayne Hoehn, blogger Dana Eiser, pro se defendant Thomas Neveu and Christopher Malley. The copyright trolling group also faces a hearing this week concerning the Center for Intercultural Organizing. In November, U.S. District Judge James Mahan ordered Righthaven to show cause why its lawsuit against the center shouldn't be dismissed on fair use grounds.

U.S. District Judge Continues to Question Righthaven's Claim of "Harm"

Judge Questions Whether Nonprofit’s Web Posting Harmed R-J
U.S. District Judge James Mahan did not rule on the fair use issue Tuesday, but he continued to pound away at Righthaven's claim of "harm" after the Center for Intercultural Organizing (CIO) posted an entire R-J article without authorization. Key quotes from the recent Las Vegas Sun article include:

• "Fair use seems like an overriding issue," Mahan said. "These cases typically get settled and the fair use doctrine never gets properly raised. I think it needs to be addressed."
• "You really think the defendants are competing with the Review-Journal and making a ton of dough on this?" Mahan asked.
• A person reading the story on the center's website "may have never heard of the Review-Journal before reading that article," the judge said. "It's a totally different market," he said.
• But with Righthaven now owning a copyright to the story, Mahan said: "There is no market for the copyrighted work. You are not publishing it. You are not operating a newspaper. Righthaven only sues people, apparently," Mahan said.

Read: Article in full

MediaPost Says, "Three's a Trend," After Judge James Mahan's Recent Direction

Three's A Trend: Another Judge Challenges Righthaven's Claims

First, U.S. District Judge Gloria Navarro in Nevada ruled that the Las Vegas Review-Journal might have granted an implied license to blogger Jan Klerks, who allegedly reposted a Review-Journal article on his noncommercial site about urban development, www.skyscrapercity.com. Navarro also ruled that Klerks might have made fair use of the article, despite the allegation that the article was reposted in its entirety.
Next, Judge Larry Hicks in Nevada dismissed Righthaven's lawsuit against realtor-blogger Michael Nelson, ruling that posting eight sentences of a 30-sentence Review-Journal article was a fair use.
Now a third federal judge in Nevada, James Mahan, has directed Righthaven to prove that a nonprofit didn't make fair use of an article it reposted -- even though the defendant, the Portland, Ore.-based Center for Intercultural Organizing, didn't argue fair use as a defense.

See: Article in full

Like TechDirt.com, New York-based MediaPost.com has been reporting on copyright troller Righthaven as new defendants are sued and key rulings are issued. (Kudos Wendy Davis!)

Judge Raises Fair Use Issue Unprompted by Defendant, Center for Intercultural Organizing

Judge to Righthaven: Show Why Lawsuit Shouldn’t Be Dismissed

In the meantime, U.S. District Judge James Mahan has ordered Righthaven to show cause why another of its lawsuits shouldn't be dismissed on fair use grounds.
That case involves the Center for Intercultural Organizing of Portland, Ore., which was sued by Righthaven in August after an entire 33-paragraph Review-Journal story about Las Vegas immigrants from June 28 was posted on the center's website, crediting the Review-Journal.
--snip--
Mahan didn't elaborate in his show cause order on the fair use issue, and Righthaven hasn't yet responded to the order.
The order came as a surprise as it was Mahan, not the defendant, who directly raised the fair use issue.

See: Article in full