Righthaven Fails To Pay Attorneys Fees Ordered By The Court, Court Asked To Declare Righthaven In Contempt
from the grubstaked dept
Ah, Righthaven. The company is now building up a history of not paying, even after a court orders it to pay. While there have been rumors swirling about filing for bankruptcy, in the meantime, the company just seems to be ignoring court orders. As you may recall, back in June, Righthaven lost one of its many cases (and many losses) to Wayne Hoehn, who Righthaven had sued despite not properly securing the copyrights in question. The court found this so egregious that it ordered Righthaven to pay $34,045.50 in legal fees to the Randazza Group, which had represented Hoehn, by September 14th.Well, September 15th rolled around... and no money, as you can see from the filing below. Righthaven had asked the court for a stay to grant it more time, but the court had not ruled either way, meaning that the company should have paid up. Hoehn had even offered to give it more time if Righthaven would post bond to show that it could pay. Righthaven chose not to respond.
Because of all of this, on Friday, Hoehn asked the court to declare Righthaven in contempt of court, to appoint "a receiver to manage Righthaven's remaining business and assets, and to require the company to post $148,118 in cash or via a bond with the court. Why the higher number? That's the calculated value of the additional fees expended since the original ruling, plus the anticipated costs of the appeal that Righthaven has indicated its planning.
Late on Sunday, Hoehn/Randazza kicked it up a notch, filing for a Writ of Execution (embedded below), which would allow for the potential seizure of Righthaven bank accounts and property in order to attempt to get the amount ordered by the court.
It seems likely that Righthaven simply can't pay. I wonder how it feels to be on the receiving end of a judicial system ordering the company to pay up more than they have. It seems kind of ironic, since it tried to put hundreds of individuals and companies in that exact position via its business model.
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Filed Under: attorneys fees, contempt, copyright
Companies: righthaven
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See, for example:
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110727/16233815292/another-day-another-study-that-say s-pirates-are-best-customers-this-time-hadopi.shtml
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Oh well, at least righthaven is going to die in agonizing pain :D
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So Righthaven is on it's way out
Starting law suits without dotting all the I's and crossing all the t's can lead to destruction.
To quote T. S. Elliot "Not with a bang, But a whimper."
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They typically were granted "right to sue" which the judges have found the right to sue is not transferable separately from the copyright. Meaning most of their "Assets" are bogus contracts that might be useful as a backup to toilet paper.
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If Righthaven has acquired ownership of Stephens Media copyrights, with a lease back arrangement, then it would be poetic justice if the court would seize those copyrights as property and title to those copyrights went to one of their intended victims.
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Value Proposition?
Somehow this does not seem to be a good value proposition.
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How on earth?
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IANAE
YESSS!
"...which would allow for the potential seizure of Righthaven bank accounts and property..."
Awww...
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Re: IANAE
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Don't worry
Stephens Media's time as a functioning entity may be coming to close in a more sudden way than they had expected, given all the illegal activity by the shell company they basically set up.
I doubt Righthaven's lawyers and legal firms are going to sit there and let them get away scot free as they get barred from practicing law!
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If the right to sue for copyright is not transferrable
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The *bare* right to sue is not transferable
The RIAA suits have the record labels as co plaintiffs--they are a party to the suit. If Stephens Media had just done that and hired Gibson to sue as a *law firm* then there would be no issue of standing--but they didn't. Stephens Wanted to distance itself from the lawsuits, both from the bad publicity one gets from suing masses of people including customers for de minimus use of news paper stories, and from the legal liability of loosing suits and having to pay attorney fees and costs of opposing council. So, Stephens Media conspired with Righthaven to create the sham transfer of copyrights so the Righthaven would sue under its own name even though it didn't actually own the rights to the works.
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It also seems the case that Righthaven have the same kind of excuses that socipathic con artists use, excuse after excuse.
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Poetic justice.
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Pierce the corporate shield
(And yes, that was an insanely-bad run-on sentence-question hybrid-monstrosity. Yes, I just wrote another abomination. Yes, I need more (or less?) caffeine.)
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Re: Pierce the corporate shield
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And considering that Rightshaven was a shill for the paper, and in a couple cases were found to no longer be a party and the paper was inserted in their stead it is possible you might see them going after Stephens. Especially when they figure out that the money was quickly transferred out of Rightshaven's control.
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That would be awesome!
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value
I say pierce the corporate liability shield, make every single person with an asset-interest in stephens media directly liable, completely destroy their careers, confiscate their assets and make very very good examples of all of them.....
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