The Blogger Vultures Get Their Heads Handed To Them

There's an outfit called Righthaven that's been a thorn in the side of bloggers for some months now.  They decided to create a new profit center by contracting with major newspapers, buying the rights to individual articles, and then suing bloggers or others who used any part of those articles in blog posts.  To date they've sued something like 200 bloggers, most of whom referenced articles in the Las Vegas Journal-Review.

Righthaven would sue for huge punitive damages and also try to get the court to make the blogger hand over the control of his domain name.  Of course, what they were really going for was some sort of settlement from people who couldn't afford or didn't want to hire a lawyer and fight the case.

Unfortunately for Righthaven they picked on a couple of the wrong guys and  twice in a week have been handed stinging rebukes by courts which could end this whole charade:

The lawsuit decided Monday targeted Wayne Hoehn, a Vietnam veteran who posted all 19 paragraphs of November editorial from the Las Vegas Review-Journal, which is owned by Stephens Media. Hoehn posted the article, and its headline, “Public Employee Pensions: We Can’t Afford Them” on medjacksports.com to prompt discussion about the financial affairs of the nation’s states. Hoehn was a user of the site, not an employee.

Righthaven sought up to $150,000, the maximum in damages allowed under the Copyright Act. Righthaven argued that the November posting reduced the number of eyeballs that would have visited the Review-Journal site to read the editorial.

“Righthaven did not present any evidence that the market for the work was harmed by Hoehn’s noncommercial use for the 40 days it appeared on the website. Accordingly, there is no genuine issue of material fact that Hoehn’s use of the work was fair and summary judgment is appropriate,” Judge Pro ruled.

The judge also said he took into consideration that only five of the editorial’s paragraphs were “purely creative opinions” of the author. . . . Pro’s decision came a week after a different Las Vegas federal judge threatened to sanction Righthaven, calling its litigation efforts “disingenuous, if not outright deceitful” when it came to standing. Standing is a legal concept that has enabled Righthaven to bring lawsuits on behalf of the copyrights owned by Stephens Media.

That blistering decision by U.S. District Judge Roger Hunt, the chief judge in Nevada, places into doubt Righthaven’s year-old business model, which is also under a Colorado federal judge’s microscope.

Hunt gave Righthaven two weeks to explain why he should not sanction it for trying to “manufacture standing.”

Righthaven is in big, big trouble. The courts are about to hit them with sanctions that could not only cost them dearly, but could end up putting someone in jail.

And it's well deserved.