Time Warner Cable CEO Remains In Denial About Cord Cutting

Righthaven Desperately Trying To Avoid Paying Legal Fees

from the keep-digging dept

Wed, Sep 28th 2011 3:54pm — Mike Masnick

The Righthaven saga continues. Just as it's lost in Colorado, and was told it needs to pay legal fees there as well, the company is still trying to get out of having to pay legal fees in the Hoehn case in Nevada. As you may recall, Righthaven was ordered to pay legal fees of $34,045.50 by September 14th. It did not do so. Following that, Hoehn's lawyer, Marc Randazza (whose name you're seeing a lot in these Righthaven cases), asked the court to declare Righthaven in contempt, and sought both to put the company into receivership and to allow US Marshals to seize property from Righthaven for its failure to pay. In typical plodding fashion, Righthaven has still not paid up... but has filed a motion (embedded below) asking the appeals court to put off the district court's judgment, because it believes the ruling will be overturned (ha!) and having to pay up would cause irreparable harm. The motion is worth reading. As with previous Righthaven motions we've seen, the company seems to think that mocking the district court judge is a reasonable strategy. You can feel the contempt for the judge in the filing, which I can't imagine will go over well.

That said, I wouldn't be surprised if the Appeals Court grants the stay. It's not uncommon for appeals courts to do so, and it's unclear if the Appeals Court is aware of Righthaven's continued antics in these cases. Still, in the end, I can't see Righthaven winning, so this just seems like delaying the inevitable.

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Filed Under: legal fees
Companies: righthaven

29 Comments

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Mike C. (profile), 28 Sep 2011 @ 3:47pm

No winners
Maybe they're just going for an ending where there are no "winners". Righthaven has lost, but if they drag this out long enough, sufficient assets will be used up such that there's nothing left to collect on, essentially making it so that nobody comes out ahead.
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Scote, 28 Sep 2011 @ 4:01pm

Does Righthaven have to inform the appeals court about its sanctions?

Whatever the case, I despise the way the legal system lets this company have a near infinite number of swings with virtually no accountability. It refuses to even post bond while waiting on appeal--a bond for what it may owe if it looses is pretty standard, but the refuse to do even that.
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Bill Silverstein (profile), 28 Sep 2011 @ 4:15pm

No mention of a bond?
Righthaven could always post an appeal bond.

I
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Andrew (profile), 28 Sep 2011 @ 4:27pm

Simply said
"Simply put, these sweeping contempt and judgment enforcement efforts unquestionably subject Righthaven to the immediate threat of irreparable harm by seeking to appoint a receiver over its affairs, as well as to seize and liquidate its tangible and intangible assets, which include the company�s intellectual property rights in and to copyright protected content that is directly at issue in this case, as well as those at issue in several other appeals pending before this Court along with content at issue numerous cases pending in the District of Nevada and the District of Colorado."

If that is "simply put" I would like to know what "verbose and unnecessarily complicated" means.
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MrWilson, 28 Sep 2011 @ 4:31pm

Re: Simply said
"...I would like to know what "verbose and unnecessarily complicated" means."

Read the legal filings in the case.
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PlagueSD (profile), 28 Sep 2011 @ 4:31pm

As of this filing, the District Court Motion has not been ruled upon despite Righthaven�s express request the district court do so on or before September 14, 2011.

Dated this 27th day of September, 2011...

On a ruling where they had until the 14th of September to pay??? Am I reading this right?
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MrWilson, 28 Sep 2011 @ 4:34pm

This is starting to remind me more and more of the SCO Group - sore losers who shouldn't have filed in the first place and who did so on brash and dishonest grounds, and refused to give up despite multiple and devastating losses. Who knew the zombie apocalypse would come in the form of zombie litigation companies?
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Anonymous Coward, 28 Sep 2011 @ 4:38pm

Re: Simply said
I've noticed that, too. Mr. Mangano seems to be a big fan of that phrase, but never uses it correctly.
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Anonymous Coward, 28 Sep 2011 @ 5:38pm

Just like SCO, RightHaven will just delay and bleed out cash until there is none left to pay anyone.
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Bort Sarsgaard, 28 Sep 2011 @ 5:54pm

Irreparable harm NOT
They can't rightfully claim "irreparable harm", since it can be repaired by "$34,045.50".
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Anonymous Coward, 28 Sep 2011 @ 5:55pm

When I want to contest a traffic ticket, guess what? I have to pay it first!

Pay up suckers and cry about it later!
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The Devil's Coachman (profile), 28 Sep 2011 @ 6:24pm

Re: Simply said
Simply put, Righthaven is a bunch of money grubbing parasites, extortionists, and douchebags, and should GDIAF. Their mothers, too.
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Aerilus, 28 Sep 2011 @ 6:34pm

Re: No winners
I was thinking the same thing delay long enough to put all the money in foreign accounts through shell companies pay all the higher-ups their bonuses and liquidate and funnel any remaining items. In short steal everything that isn't bolted to the floor.
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mr. sim (profile), 28 Sep 2011 @ 7:40pm

Re: No winners
except i see that the way righthaven messed up and i forsee the victims they tried to extort filing suit against Stephens Media for the money.
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Anonymous Coward, 28 Sep 2011 @ 8:36pm

The motion is worth reading.

Still, for those who are in a hurry, here are a few highlights:

-"The decisions on appeal demonstrate clear error by the district court and must be reversed upon review by this Court."
-"Serious legal questions are those that the court perceives a need to preserve the status quo." (Perhaps they meant "are needed", or "where the court perceives a need"?)
-"Granting a stay of the Judgment during appellate review also mitigates any irreparable harm impacting Righthaven's pending and future copyright litigation efforts."
-"Righthaven also has significant proprietary rights in its copyright infringement search engine software" (They have what now? I figured they just used Google or something.)
-"Simply put, Righthaven cannot allow these assets to be seized and liquidated while it seeks appellate review."
-"Granting a stay also serves the public interest. [...] For instance, Righthaven's appeal implicates the parameters under which non-content generating copyright holders can enforce rights in and to assigned content. The public would unquestionably benefit from additional case law that sets forth the requirements for properly conveying ownership in and to copyright protected content together with the right to sue for accrued infringement claims."

And an executive summary:

"You can't take our money because we're right and you're all wrong."
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Anonymous Coward, 28 Sep 2011 @ 8:49pm

Re: No winners
go after the actual people who run righthaven, get their property.
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keiichi969 (profile), 28 Sep 2011 @ 10:11pm

Re:
Except, this is nothing like that.

This is closer to you going in front of the judge, contesting the ticket, going to court, losing, being given the fine, then appealing the ruling.

You still need to pay the fine. if you win, you get it back.
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keiichi969 (profile), 28 Sep 2011 @ 10:12pm

Re: Re:
Wish I could edit posts...

So quit your whining Righthaven. You wanted to pay ball in the big courts, and now that you're getting beat, you want to quit?

Yeah, no. Life isn't fair. Deal with it.
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The eejit (profile), 28 Sep 2011 @ 11:03pm

Re: Re: Simply said
Oh, come on! At least set the Bear-Riding Time-Travelling Thomas Jefferson on them first!
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Prisoner 201, 29 Sep 2011 @ 12:11am

Re:
I think it's a buffer overflow attack. Pretty soon the Judge's memory allocation for bullshit is going to be be full, and the next legal document sent by Righthaven will overwrite into reasonable memory, potentially executing arbitrary judgement with root privileges.
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Tor (profile), 29 Sep 2011 @ 1:13am

Re: No winners
If you by "Righthaven has lost" mean that they will eventually need to file for a bankruptcy and that they are aware of that, wouldn't wasting money in such a situation be illegal? (since there is ground to believe that the money is actually not theirs to waste)
Or maybe you just meant incurring costs upon the other party in this specific trial.
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Tor (profile), 29 Sep 2011 @ 1:22am

Public interest
Here are three more quotes that I found funny/interesting:

"Consideration should also be given to where the public interest lies."

"Righthaven must further show that issuing the requested stay would further the public interest. "

"Denying stay relief, however, necessarily raises the possibility that Righthaven may be forced to file bankcruptcy and liquidation (...). This would deprive the public of this Court's analysis on a host of complex issues concerning the enforcement of copyright protected material displayed without authorization on the Internet."
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surfer (profile), 29 Sep 2011 @ 3:20am

Re: Public interest
in other words, The court has not allowed us to set precedent that would allow us to further fuck the public
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punisher, 29 Sep 2011 @ 5:50am

beat them
It is high times to beat the shit out these righthaven faggots. I do not mean kill them, but i do mean cause serious body harm to them, break a leg, hit their families and everything they hold dear, burn their cars, scare the shit outta them, and whatever else comes to mind.
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Anonymous Coward, 29 Sep 2011 @ 6:33am

What's so annoying about all of this is that if Righthaven had gotten away with what it wanted to do they would have no patience, or sympathy for someone they were suing not paying up. Once the shoe is on the other foot though it's stall and lie. Such a rotten company.
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Anonymous Coward, 29 Sep 2011 @ 7:55am

Rearranging the deck chairs?
Sounds like they are re-arranging the deck chairs (and offloading the gold onto the nearest submarine) before the ship goes down...

I didn't see a renegade cook or stripper anywhere in the mix, but it would make for a better story when they sell the rights to their story to the movie makers (it will be the only thing they have left when the judge gets done with them if we are lucky).
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Anonymous Coward, 29 Sep 2011 @ 9:24am

Re: Re:
"This is closer to you going in front of the judge, contesting the ticket, going to court, losing, being given the fine, then appealing the ruling."

In fairness, it's more like getting a large fine you are unable to pay and having your car seized and sold to pay it off while you appeal. Even if you win on appeal, the car is gone and you just lost your method of getting to work.

(Not saying Righthaven is right overall, just saying they might win this particular motion.)
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Anonymous Coward, 29 Sep 2011 @ 1:47pm

Re: beat them
So the RH weenies are setting up a strawman to point to: "Look, people are physically threatening us!"

Of course, there would probably be a misspelled word or two in their calling out "the threats".
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Marc John Randazza (profile), 29 Sep 2011 @ 7:59pm

Re: beat them
That's really un-cool. I despise Righthaven as much as anyone, but dude... that's not even cool as a joke.
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