Copyright Troll May Face Sanctions

Oh, such sweet, sweet justice.  Copyright troll Righthaven, Inc. which has made an entire business model out of suing people for posting snippets of text to which they allegedly held the copyright, has been resoundingly defeated ina lawsuit.

A federal judge in Las Vegas today issued a potentially devastating ruling against copyright enforcer Righthaven LLC, finding it doesn't have standing to sue over Las Vegas Review-Journal stories, that it has misled the court and threatening to impose sanctions against Righthaven.

Because he found Righthaven doesn't have standing to sue, Chief U.S. District Judge for Nevada Roger Hunt dismissed Righthaven's copyright infringement lawsuit against the Democratic Underground.

But he's allowing the Democratic Underground to continue its counterclaim against Stephens Media LLC, owner of the Review-Journal. That could be expensive for Stephens Media as the Democratic Underground attorneys from the Electronic Frontier Foundation are asking to be awarded attorney's fees.

I wrote about this earlier here.

This article available online at:

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/06/copyright-troll-may-face-sanctions/240506/