The Shields are Down! The Shields are Down!

Tweet Righthaven – the copyright thugster and blogger-suer extraordinaire – continues the nosedive it began with its Democratic Underground defeat in June, the revelations from which led me to suggest the Nevada bar should consider attorney misconduct charges against Righthaven CEO Steve Gibson. Here's some of the latest to happen since then: Insignificant rebellion? South Carolina attorney Todd Kincannon is looking for people who've been sued by Righthaven to be clients for a class-action litigation he's putting together. He's even looking for people who've already settled. Wow, I don't recall ever seeing people have a potential cause of action because they've settled. Righthaven hoped to blaze new legal trails – but not like this! I used to bulls-eye womp rats in my T-16 back home. They're not much bigger than two meters. Righthaven has a website! I don't know when this started, but it's the first I've noticed it. When Righthaven originally hit the news, they didn't have a web presence, but now they have this intimidating looking site. And what's funny about it is, the first time I looked at, the television in our home happened randomly to chime in with a sound clip of the Darth Vader Theme from Star Wars. (For reals!) On its website, Righthaven declares itself "THE NATION'S PREEMINENT COPYRIGHT ENFORCER." It's also got a funny kind of graphic which, I have to say, kind of looks like the view down the trench of the Death Star. The only thing that interrupts the Dark Side theme is what looks like a gigantic bacterium that is dividing in two. And that, at least, certainly looks foreboding. Now, there's no other pages or any other content except for the graphic, which has the slogan and contact information embedded in it. (Much of the text is hard to read because it disappears into the background in a typographic meltdown.) Now, you do realize what that means: By my putting up the one inset picture of the Righthaven website (upper right), I've copied 100% of the website. Uh oh. And since it's Righthaven's own website, this is one copyright infringement suit that they actually wouldn't have standing problems with. Now, what I've done is fair use. Helpfully Righthaven's misfires have helped establish solid precedent that taking 100% of something can qualify as fair use. Now, a solid fair-use defense hasn't stopped Righthaven from suing in the past, but maybe it will in the future, since … Cha-CHING! After losing on fair use in Righthaven v. Hoehn, 2011 WL 2441020 (D. Nev. June 20, 2011), Righthaven's now been order to pay $34,000 in attorneys fees. "The wheels appear to be coming off the Righthaven trainwreck-in-progress," says Ars Technica. And that's gonna matter for a business that thrives on low-dollar settlements somewhere in the $2,500 range. Will Righthaven declare bankruptcy before the year is out? Hmmm. Difficult to see. Always in motion the future is.

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