We pick up the whole sorry saga of Righthaven where we left off on Tuesday, which was right around when they had decided to add this company to the ever-growing list of publications they were suing and when and our publisher, Anthony Curtis, was calling them "stupid".
Righthaven’s undoing was a lawsuit against the Democratic Underground after the latter posted four paragraphs – or 12% -- of an R-J article, not only giving the paper full credit but also publishing a link to the original story, a move that would theoretically increase R-J page views. Defense attorneys, in the discovery process, had the Stephens Media/Righthaven contract opened and found that Righthaven didn’t actually own the stories it purported to control, only the right to sue (a specious right, according to the Ninth District Court of Appeals) – and even that right was non-exclusive, further undermining Righthaven’s standing.
Not only did U.S. District Court Judge Roger Hunt find that the Democratic Underground had acted within the parameters of the 'fair use' doctrine, he wrote that he "believes that Righthaven has made multiple inaccurate and likely dishonest statements to the court." Stephens and Righthaven (who intended to split the profits from the lawsuits) not only lost -- they were out $774,000 in legal fees to the Democratic Underground, an online community "where politically liberal people can do their part to effect political and social change by ... sharing news and information, free from the corporate media filter" and "participating in lively, thought-provoking discussions."
(As TechDirt.com explained, "Technically, Stephens Media tried to give the copyright to Righthaven, but since it retained all of the listed rights under copyright law, it was clearly not an actual transfer.")
To make a long story short, Righthaven lost in the courts time and time again. It met its ultimate "Waterloo" in the form of blogger Wayne Hoehn, who pasted an opinion piece about public pensions on the MadJackSports.com discussion boards. After he beat Righthaven in court, Hoehn was awarded $63,720 in legal fees and Righthaven couldn’t pony up the money, forcing it into receivership. It had to surrender 278 copyright registrations (including some for pornographic films), even its computers. So insolvent was Righthaven, sapped by failed litigation, that its domain name was – insert irony here – sold for $3,300 in a January 2012 auction to a Swiss company dedicating to protecting against copyright trolls. In March 2013, the copyright assignments were sold back to Stephens Media so that the Righthaven Receivership Estate could pay its legal bills.
In what First Amendment attorney Marc Randazza called "a tantrum and an attempt to salve [Gibson's] ego," the Righthaven co-founder, even though bereft of company and assets, managed to get two cases before the Ninth Circuit court. Its ruling, however, kicked the last legs out from under Gibson, stating, "Before us is a case about a lawyer who tried to establish that a company owned a copyright by drafting a contract calling the company the copyright owner, even though the company lacked the rights associated with copyright ownership. Heeding … the requirements of the Copyright Act, we conclude that merely calling someone a copyright owner does not make it so."
After that May 9, 2013 benchslap, nothing more was heard from Gibson, and Righthaven was quickly forgotten. As of today, the R-J has still not put its site behind a paywall, or even instituted the kind of tiered-subscription model the Boston Globe uses (five articles a month for free, anything more requires payment).
Subscriptions took a massive plunge during the Righthaven era, but that also coincided with Frederick’s unrelenting use of the newspaper as a weapon to attempt to defeat Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) and install rival – and Righthaven defendant – Sharron Angle in his place. Shortly after Reid was reelected, Stephens Media ousted Frederick and demoted Editor Thomas Mitchell. Fortunately for Stephens and Righthaven, the latter's victims elected not to counter-sue their tormentor. Dismantling it out of existence seems to have been sufficient revenge.
Today, the R-J is under different ownership, that of New Media Investments, which has accelerated the differentiation between the print and online editions of the paper (during the Frederick era, they mirrored each other), with some content appearing in print but not online, and vice versa. At least some file-sharing is now encouraged, as R-J news video is accompanied by embed codes. Contacted by Green earlier this year, attorney Gibson still bristles with defiance and stands by his Righthaven attack-dog business model. But it ended so ignominiously for all behind it that it's unlikely to have any emulators. The courts have seen to that.
