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Wednesday, Feb. 23, 2011 | 3:25 p.m.
Las Vegas copyright enforcement company Righthaven LLC and its co-owner, Net Sortie Systems LLC, are no longer listed as in "default" by the Nevada Secretary of State business licensing system. They're now "active" after their renewal information was submitted and then posted by the Secretary of State's office on Tuesday.
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Court records show more Righthaven copyright infringement lawsuits have been settled or otherwise closed. The latest cases closed by federal courts in Nevada and Colorado involved defendants Donald K. Schultz, Eric Calouro and his Erictric Media Group, Jan Klerks, CrimeNews2000 and Bear Den Holdings Inc.
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Also, Linda Muller and Nathan Muller of Smetheport, Pa., were dropped from a Righthaven lawsuit over the website wehategringos.com
The Mullers issued a press release complaining Righthaven had sued them even though they had sold the website more than a year before a Las Vegas Review-Journal story allegedly was posted there without authorization.
"Even though we no longer owned the website, the long drawn-out process of clearing the matter caused us considerable emotional distress," Linda Muller said. "This hung over our heads for six months, causing us to divert considerable time and energy from our businesses. That our names will be tagged forever on the Internet as law breakers is especially tough to deal with. It doesn’t matter that this happens only occasionally; it matters that it should happen at all."
"This is our first encounter with the conveyor-belt approach to litigation, which relies on cut-and-paste boilerplate dumped into a judicial hopper," said Nathan Muller.
"Righthaven seems to rely on the deliberate infliction of severe emotional distress as a tool to clobber hapless individuals into settling their cases prematurely. It follows that Righthaven had to know there was a high probability that its conduct would cause us severe emotional distress as well," their press release said.
Righthaven, however, said in a court motion that it sued the Mullers based on information from the domain name registrant, GoDaddy.com, that the Mullers were the registrants of the site.
"Based upon the Mullers' responsive pleading and further research into the matter, Righthaven believes that the Mullers are not the proper defendants or infringer of the work (story)," Righthaven said in a court filing, adding it now intends to sue an individual identified as Brad Hill, whom Righthaven believes owns the website. Hill has not yet responded to those allegations.
This isn't the first time a defendant has been dropped from a Righthaven case under these circumstances.
Laurene Stewart was dropped from the CrimeNews2000 case last year after saying she had sold that website in January 2009, well before Righthaven started its litigation campaign over alleged infringements involving material from the Review-Journal and the Denver Post.
"I had no involvement in the alleged copyright infringement which gives rise to the complaint in this matter," Stewart wrote in a court filing. Righthaven didn't contest her motion that she be dismissed from the case.
Chunky agrees:
The Righthaven business model is a "severe infection" eating away and wasting the resources of the defendants (exactly what they want to do) and also our judicial system.
That's what Chunky thinks!
Linda and Nathan Muller need to sue this outfit out of existence. Righthaven sues with little as a Google search as evidence. their sloppy and irresponsible practices will come back to bight them severely.
Every time I read one of these updates I'm glad I canceled my RJ subscription.
For those who criticize Righthaven, have you ever had YOUR copyrighted material stolen?
My cousin spent 10 years of his life writing 5 physical education textbooks which were promptly copyrighted in a timely way.
Late last year, by browsing through Amazon, we discovered that a Guido from Los Angeles had plagarized 2 of my cousin's books, to the extent of 80% of their text. The man was selling the textbook on Amazon for $350. My cousing was getting nothing for his education, research and writing which took 1000's of hours to develop his books.
Thank heaven for Righthaven. Plagarism is truly theft and conversions, not some victimless crime or tort.
@ Cynical Hahaha...Who would ever pay $350.00 for a PE textbook.
I am sorry to hear that Righthaven is free to sue and tear people's lives apart legally. Brian Hill is my grandson, and I am very proud of him. His site (www.uswgo.com) was so professional looking that Righthaven decided to sue him too. This is not your normal copyright law suit. Learn about Righthaven. They are trying to take away our freedom of speech on the Internet using legal extortion. People with real talent who have enough money will try to get a copyright on their work. We respect copyright and copyright laws. In this case, a newspaper is asking everyone to share their photos and print them. After this photo is everywhere on the Internet, then Righthaven gets a copyright on what should be of interest to all USA citizens and even citizens from other countries (especially people who fly on planes). They see this photo on your website or blog THEN they get a copyright on this photo or news article (not their work). They don't tell you or warn you, they simply sue you in court, file the court papers on you for $150,000, then they try to settle with you for $6,000 and your domain (your website). They are cold and evil acting people when you talk to them, they don't mind breaking laws dealing with SSI checks that disabled need every penny of that money to survive. Righthaven wanted to garnish Brian's SSI check at $50.00 per month until the $6,000 was paid to avoid going to court. They told Brian if he didn't settle (This was after Brian explained that he has mild autism and brittle type 1 insulin dependent diabetes and his only source of income is his SSI check, he has no money nor owns anything and is only 20 years old and removed all photos from his website (including his own) because of this lawsuit. Righthaven said if Brian does not settle for the $6,000, it will cost him a lot more money if this goes to court.
I forgot to mention that my grandson, Brian Hill, is not making any money at all from his website. This has been a hobby for Brian. This case with Righthaven is different than the case this person mentions here who is praising Righthaven! Righthaven is suing college students, disabled people, retired people who do these websites as a hobby. They sure are not making any money from a photo which is all over google and yahoo search and is now old news (from November). I personally don't even like this photo at all, and I really don't like Righthaven!!!
Here's hoping that the Mullers' take a little hide out of Gibson's rear. Legally, of course.
American Justice Dot Org
@cynicalobserver You are referring to something completely different. Your cousin's work was plagerized, there was no copyright infringement. If he is the legal owner of the copyrighted work and can prove it, it's crystal clear that his work was plagarized. What Righthaven is doing is finding photos and newsarticles that people are interested in, then copyrighting them so they can sue the people involved. It is legal, but not ethical at all.
Chunky says:
Yes, he's spent his entire career protecting his work and intellectual property and other than one instance out of 50-60 infringements it's always been settled with a firm but courteous letter and an invoice. Only once did it require the services of a lawyer and that was settled with that letter.
Chunky supports all authors and their rights to their work and most people do. It's the excessive use of judicial force Righthaven uses and unnecessary burden on the defendants most people find difficult to stomach.
That's what Chunky thinks!
This is not about YOUR material being stolen. This is about a company set up for the sole purpose of buying copyrights from the company owner, for the purpose of lawsuits.
Your "cousin" is a different matter. His plagiarized book is being sold by someone else. A theft of profit. 90% of these lawsuits are about a paragraph out of a multi-paragraph or multi-page article and a link back.
It would be like your "cousin" setting up a company strictly to seek out and sue book reviewers for copyright infringement - because they took a quote out of the book and posted as part of their review.
Cynacal Observer
As of this date Righthaven has yet to sue a plagarizer or someone who has taken copyrighted material to resell or claim it as their own. Infact Righthaven would not be interested in your cousins work unless your cousin was willing to give up control over his own work and sell them the copyright. They would then shelve your cousins work never to be sold again and use it only for litigation purposes. That is exactly what Righthaven is doing.
I want to express an intermediate perspective. It seems that the idea of protecting abuse in copyrights seems reasonable. The modus operandi is what seems abrasive. The lack of notification, the lack of attempting to resolve the alleged infraction, the mis-steps in identifying the proper owners, et. al., cast a shadow on Righthaven. If they proceeded in the legal tradition of exhausting all avenues of attempted resolution then and only then should more intense legal proceedings begin. The legal issue will ultimately be one of due diligence rather than copyright ... in my humble opinion.