Righthaven Loses Again; Has To Pay Legal Fees
from the that-business-model-is-looking-great dept
Righthaven's disastrous legal strategy keeps getting worse day by day. The latest is that in one of its many cases, the company didn't just have its case dismissed, but a judge has ordered it to pay legal fees (see attached ruling below). In this case, it appears that (among the many other problems Righthaven has faced lately) it failed to serve the defendants properly or in a timely manner with an amended complaint. Because of that, the court dismissed the complaint. While the defendant had originally defended himself, when the judge called a hearing to discuss whether or not the defendant was properly served, one of the defendants (Michael Leon) retained a lawyer (J. Malcolm DeVoy IV from the Randazza Legal Group) on a pro bono basis. Righthaven fought having to pay legal fees, claiming that it had been under the impression that any fees would go to charity (this is not clear, but I assume that point had been raised earlier), and saying that there shouldn't be any legal fees because the representation was pro bono. The court, however, didn't buy any of that and pointed out that you can still reward reasonable legal fees for pro bono representation and accepted DeVoy's submitted fees of $3,815.00, even though most of the time was spent working on the filings to get those same legal fees.Righthaven's business model was already in trouble with questions over standing and its failure to declare who had monetary interest in the cases. However, if judges now flip the equation and start requiring the firm to pay legal fees as well, the business model might go from bad to downright costly.
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Filed Under: legal fees
Companies: righthaven
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...oh, wait....
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Legal Reform
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Re: Legal Reform
The way things are now, civil suits are mostly risk free. If things go your way, the other party will offer to settle. If they don't, you offer to settle. In the end, money changes hands, lawyers get rich and zero precedents are getting set leading to further confusion of the issues.
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If you don't count your attorney fees, bad publicity, the risk of counterclaims...
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Re: Legal Reform
Why do you want to discourage pro bono representation but not have the same disincentives for people who can afford to pay attorneys?
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"Pro tip - Stop, the hole you are digging is too deep"
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Ha!
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Please continue digging! Dig faster!
File new lawsuits.
Start suing over smaller and smaller usages of content on RJ and other Righthaven partner websites. Ideally, sue over phrases of two to five words in length, asking for maximum statutory damages.
Have RJ copy content from a blog, unattributed, then sue the blog!
I'll be back with more fantastic ideas for you later, but I've got to get some more popcorn.
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Randazza
As for p2p porn copyright trolling, Randazza is a troll. Remember Leprechauns and Unicorns? Also, it is not widely known, Randazza is another troll's (Sperlein of IO Group - covered by TorrentFreak recently) proxy in a clear-cut trolling case in Florida. This is one of few showcases filed by Sperlein against individuals to increase pressure to settle. Read more on Sperlein in my blog.
I understand that we don't live in a Hollywood movie with good guys/bad guys and no shades of gray, but still...
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Also, what kind of lawyer discusses "A reason to swallow and a reason to spit" on his professional blog, albeit jokingly?
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Re: Randazza
Moreover, it shouldn't surprise anyone that an IP attorney might willingly represent a paying client (or a pro bono client) as a copyright infringement plaintiff, and yet also take on a pro bono client as a copyright infringement defendant.
There are a lot of differences between the Righthaven cases and the mass copyright infringement cases you're referencing, even though all IP plaintiffs tend to get painted with the same brush around here.
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No doubt lawyers both defend and prosecute, and this is normal, but we are not talking about copyright infringement cases with merit and probable cause, we are talking about this new phenomenon – predatory copyright trolling. After spending a couple of hours researching, a reasonable person will certainly agree that all the trolls are unethical, regardless of their subspecies. Do not jump to conclusions without thorough research.
Yes, of course there are differences, but methods are basically the same - pay up or face financial devastation (i.e. extortion - plain and simple). And the root of both cases is the same: abusing flawed laws.
I sadly observe that Righthaven victims tend to paint themselves as white knights of Fair Use and think about us, p2p troll victims, as a bunch of thieves. Again, we don't live in a Hollywood movie; the reality is far more complex. It is statistically idiotic to believe that every one of hundreds of thousands accused is guilty. And those who are not have ended up in much worse situation than bloggers harassed by Righthaven - we found ourselves in a Kafkian world of reversed Blackstone formulation and perverted presumption of innocence, we have to prove that we are innocent, not the other way around. Even those who in fact downloaded those filthy movies don't deserve the treatment they get: the entire scheme is built to make it impossible to fight back without fear of revenge. Antonio Almeida managed to anger Sperlein, and that’s why he is selectively targeted with Randazza’s help. I talked to Antonio: he does not even know the fucking difference between BitTorrent and eDonkey! His life is turned to hell so some greedy lowlifes would pocket more green paper.
I watch Righthaven cases, and wish you get informed about our problem. You are doing a great job with your blog and have a good heart, just misinformed IMHO. I find it unproductive to concentrate on differences, because clearly developments on one front impact the other.
Peace.
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As far as "not having merit," I don't think that's really clear with the mass infringement suits. They certainly have some procedural problems (i.e., filing suit over people where there may not be personal jurisdiction) and they may have swept up a few innocents along with actual infringers. But they allege facts that are pretty clearly infringing, whereas Righthaven cases often allege facts that may not be infringing.
Regarding the threat to pay up or face litigation costs, that is true of every civil lawsuit, so it's not really any basis for comparing/contrasting types of suits.
I don't have a blog, and "probable cause" is not a concept relevant to civil copyright suits, so I'm not sure if you're quite as "sophisticated" as your name.
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less than 4,000?
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Righthaven should self-immolate!
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The entire purpose of Righthaven has been to act as a buffer for these sorts of liabilities. Even though this is clearly fraudulent, since they are essentially acting as a contractor on behalf of the real copyright holders, that fraud is a separate issue. If Righthaven goes out of business it would seem to require lawsuits against the owners of the copyrights involved and Righthaven's owners to prevent those debts from being wiped out with the company.
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That being the case, they were terribly misguided and this mess was reasonably forseeable. All their post hoc disingenuous excuses have not done them any favors.
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If a lawyer does the same thing, he gets to hide behind his responsibility in the adversarial process. Within certain boundaries, this is a necessary evil. The common understanding of laws is more fluid than medical standards or accounting practices. But at some point there needs to be a line you can't step over. Otherwise the adversarial process ceases to be an instrument of justice and instead becomes a tool for circumventing the law. We have long since passed that point.
Any solution would no doubt be just as complex as the problem. However, when a judge calls your arguments, "flagrantly false-to the point that the claim
is disingenuous, if not outright deceitful," wherever the line is, you have almost certainly crossed it. And it's not just an offense against the defendants. Practices like this are harmful to society as a whole. Beyond the financial cost to the public, which is no small thing considering the number of cases Righthaven has pursued, it taints the entire legal system with the stink of corruption.
A justice system which appears to be corrupt is virtually indistinguishable from one that actually is. People who do not trust the the legal system to give them justice are unlikely to use that system to pursue it. Likewise, those who perceive that it can be an instrument of injustice will only be emboldened to use it for exactly that purpose.
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The worse this gets, the more I believe that this worst case scenario was probably contemplated by the principals and Righthaven was set up to absorb liability in Stephens' place. Stephens may have hoped that if its shell went bankrupt and became judgment proof, the story would simply end there.
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