
Righthaven reeling: secret doc could doom a copyright troll - evo_9
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/04/righthaven-reeling-secret-doc-could-doom-a-copyright-troll.ars
======
grellas
This revelation _is_ devastating for Righthaven's current cases filed in
conjunction with the Stephens Media relationship but does _not_
(unfortunately) undermine the mass-lawsuit business model.

To be able to sue legitimately for copyright infringement, Righthaven must
have had some substantial right under copyright assigned to it - that is,
something beyond the bare right to sue (Silvers v. Sony Pictures).

Here, the agreement truly provides for a sham form of assignment: (1)
Righthaven is expressly said to have no rights to exploit any of the
copyrights purportedly assigned and all such rights are reserved to Stephens;
(2) Stephens can block Righthaven from suing any particular party; (3)
Stephens can demand the copyright back at any time; (4) Stephens gets a 50%
cut of any recovery in any lawsuit filed; and (5) a Stephens-controlled
representative is required to be part of Righthaven's key team. Given these
terms and conditions, Righthaven is basically a puppet and Stephens is what
the law calls the "real party in interest" in these lawsuits. Since no true
assignment took place, the current lawsuits filed pursuant to this agreement
are in _deep_ trouble. And, just in case the Righthaven lawyers missed it, the
judge who is responsible for handling these cases is hopping mad at them.

The bad news: if such assignments are done as true assignments, the Righthaven
model still works, or at least is not undone be a congenital defect that can't
be overcome in future cases.

Kudos to EFF for splendid work in pounding through the fake exterior of these
cases and sending them to perdition, for that is surely where they will land
after this revelation.

~~~
cube13
>The bad news: if such assignments are done as true assignments, the
Righthaven model still works, or at least is not undone be a congenital defect
that can't be overcome in future cases.

I'm not sure if any media creator would ever sign away their rights to that
level, though.

If I understand this right(IANAL), for Righthaven to actually have a case,
they would need some level of ownership of the work at hand. So they would
need a right to distribute, perform, etc. the works that they're suing over.

I can't imagine any of the copyright holders would be willing to sign over
those rights, considering that the entire reason that they would enter into an
agreement with Righthaven would be to sue other people for "violating" them...

~~~
kragen
> I'm not sure if any media creator would ever sign away their rights to that
> level, though.

Plenty of them do. A particularly historically-significant example was when
Seattle Computer Products sold the rights to MS-DOS to Microsoft, but it's
something that happens every day.

~~~
chc
I think "to that level" means "to the point where you give up all interests in
your work just so somebody else can sue." Selling your rights is one thing;
simply assigning them away to a troll with nothing to show for it is somewhat
less common.

------
sixtofour
So why didn't Stephens Media just hire an attorney by hiring an attorney,
rather than by creating a fake front?

~~~
gamble
Stephens Media is essentially sharecropping their IP. They get a cut of the
profits if Righthaven's lawsuits succeed, whereas if the suits fail it's
Righthaven that bears the legal costs.

------
nitrogen
Could this concept of assigning rights that don't exist apply to major media
splitting hairs regarding distribution rights, e.g. allowing streaming to PCs,
but not tablets, even though the data goes through the same wifi connection?

