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To: scion who wrote (113037)	5/9/2011 11:52:52 AM
From: scion	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 122087

Lawyers ask to participate in potentially pivotal copyright case By Steve Green (contact) Saturday 7 May 2011 2:05 a.m. vegasinc.com The attorneys most active in fighting Las Vegas copyright enforcement company Righthaven LLC now want to participate in a potentially pivotal case involving copyright infringement allegations against the Pahrump Life blog. Attorneys representing Righthaven defendant the Democratic Underground and another group of attorneys representing the Media Bloggers Association asked U.S. District Judge James Mahan in Las Vegas on Friday for permission for the Democratic Underground and the bloggers group to participate as friends of the court in the Pahrump Life case. They sought to participate by filing briefs and potentially appearing at Pahrump Life hearings. The Pahrump Life case is important in the Righthaven litigation as Mahan — who has already ruled against Righthaven on fair use grounds in another case — is now threatening to find Righthaven doesn’t have standing to sue over content allegedly misappropriated from the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Righthaven, meanwhile, has lined up a star attorney from New York to help defend its right to sue. Based on past experience in the fair use decision, Mahan is likely to allow the Democratic Underground and the Media Bloggers Association to participate in the Pahrump Life case. That would level the playing field as the main defendant there, Michael Scaccia, is a retired construction manager who has been representing himself against Righthaven. Scaccia was sued after a Review-Journal story about a private prison showed up on his website. The Democratic Underground is represented by some of the top copyright attorneys in the West associated with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which has been pounding away at Righthaven’s litigation campaign and convinced another judge to unseal Righthaven’s lawsuit contract with Review-Journal owner Stephens Media LLC. Mahan’s review of that contract is what prompted him to declare Righthaven apparently doesn’t have standing to sue. The Media Bloggers Association is represented by copyright experts with Randazza Legal Group in the West as well as New York copyright attorney Ron Coleman. “The entire existence of (the bloggers’ group) is premised upon advancing grassroots media and citizen journalism through ‘blogging’ — the creation of one’s own media outlet through a web log, or ‘blog’ — and providing legal assistance to these bloggers. Since its inception in 2004, (the group) has defended dozens of bloggers in legal actions, and in 2008 helped develop the first-ever media liability insurance policy for bloggers,” said a filing Friday by the bloggers. “In this case, defendants Michael and Maren Scaccia are not represented by any counsel and have proceeded pro se through Michael Scaccia thus far,” their filing said. “Therefore, the presence of non-party (bloggers) to answer the court’s questions on this novel, complex issue is particularly appropriate.” Besides representing the bloggers as a friend of the court in another case involving defaulting defendant Bill Hyatt, Randazza Legal Group represents other Righthaven defendants and is fighting to have the cases against them dropped on fair use grounds and grounds that Righthaven lacks standing to sue. Separately, after it was stung by two fair use defeats, Righthaven is being more selective in its latest batch of lawsuits. Righthaven filed at least three more lawsuits Friday over Las Vegas Review-Journal material, lifting its lawsuit count since March 2010 to 274 over Review-Journal and Denver Post material. Friday’s suits were on top of six suits filed Thursday. The latest to be sued were: • John Kirk (johnjohnsaidit.com) • Neil G. Brommell and Holly L. Brewer (tvclubhouse.com) • Bob Sieber (atomicbobs.com) Messages for comment were left with the latest defendants. A look at the websites of the most recent defendants — and the infringements alleged in the lawsuits — shows most of the new defendants’ sites are supported by advertising. And Righthaven is suing over alleged 100 percent infringements as opposed to partial posts. Those two factors — a defendant’s nonprofit status and the partial post of a story — were cited by judges this year and last year in ruling their use of Review-Journal stories online without authorization was permitted by the fair use doctrine of copyright law. The johnjohnsaidit.com site, for instance, is clearly advertiser supported. That suit includes an exhibit indicating the “JJSaidIt Staff” posted an entire Review-Journal column on the site by Norm Clarke. Only by reading the fine print on the post could it be determined this came from the Review-Journal. Of the sites named in Thursday’s lawsuits — subliminalselfhypnosis.com; lawmedconsultant.com; extremedui.net; affordable-hunting-trips.com, newsblaze.com and floridasteaks.com — all are advertiser-supported or sell products online such as a book about deer hunting, steaks and a subliminal stop-smoking MP3. These are similar to Righthaven’s April 21 lawsuit against the alleged owner of lasvegasinfonewspaper.com, which was accused of posting entire Review-Journal stories on the advertiser-supported site. One new defendant that appears to be a hobby site is TV ClubHouse, which lacks advertising except for TV ClubHouse t-shirts. The site calls itself an online community for discussing just about anything, though it focuses on television, particularly reality television. In that suit, Righthaven says Brommell owns the tvclubhouse.com website domain name and that Brewer, a registered user of the site, posted on a forum board an entire Review-Journal story about a “Survivor” reality show contestant introducing a new casino game at the Golden Nugget hotel-casino in Las Vegas. Records show this post linked to the Review-Journal, but only through the fine print could someone deduce this was a story from the Review-Journal. “Mr. Brommell knew, or reasonably should have known, that websites, such as (his) website, are and were the habitual subject of contributions by others of copyright-infringing content to the website,” Righthaven alleged in the lawsuit. “Mr. Brommell did not institute any proactive policy of precluding or attempting to preclude the contributions by others of copyright-infringing content to the website.” Another new defendant, Sieber at atomicbobs.com, doesn’t appear to have advertising on his message-board site but does accept donations payable to Atomic Bob’s Enterprises in Nowata, Okla. One thing that hasn’t changed with these new lawsuits is that, like most Righthaven lawsuits filed since March 2010, they’re of the no-warning variety. Two of the defendants reached by the Las Vegas Sun and its sister publication, VEGAS INC, said an inquiry from the Sun was the first they had heard about any concern with their use of Review-Journal material and the lawsuits. vegasinc.com

To: scion who wrote (113037)	7/6/2011 10:40:48 AM
From: scion	Respond to of 122087

Righthaven ordered to pay defendant’s legal fees By Steve Green (contact) Wednesday 6 July 2011 2 a.m. vegasinc.com One of the Righthaven LLC copyright lawsuits turned out to be a money loser for the Las Vegas company after a series of errors, culminating Tuesday in an award of legal fees for one of the defendants. U.S. District Judge Gloria Navarro on Tuesday ordered Righthaven to pay attorneys for former defendant Michael Leon $3,815. Leon was named in one of the 274 lawsuits Righthaven has filed since March 2010 over alleged infringements of material from the Las Vegas Review-Journal and the Denver Post. Leon, a veterans advocate in Fitchburg, Wisc., and an organization called MedBillz in San Diego were sued in September over allegations a Las Vegas Review-Journal story was posted on the veteranstoday.com website. Before he was served, Righthaven filed an amended complaint in November also naming Denver-area retired military nurse Denise Nichols as a defendant. She was accused of posting a Denver Post column on the website. One problem with this amended complaint is that it was titled "United States District Court – Southern District of California,’’ even though it was filed in Nevada. The amended suit went on to say, "The United States District Court for the Southern District of California is an appropriate venue’’ for the suit. Problems for Righthaven continued in the case when Nichols was served with the first version of the suit not naming her as a defendant. Amidst confusion over who was served with what, Navarro eventually dismissed the suit against Leon because he was not served in time, and Righthaven dropped the suit against Nichols after settlement talks with her failed. Navarro noted in her fee ruling Tuesday that on April 20, when she dismissed the suit against Leon, the parties stipulated the dismissal would be without prejudice but with an award of attorney’s fees. Since the dismissal was without prejudice, Righthaven can sue Leon again. But since April 20, two other judges have ruled Righthaven lacks standing to sue over Las Vegas Review-Journal material under Righthaven’s lawsuit contract with R-J owner Stephens Media LLC. That would appear to make another suit against Leon unlikely unless Righthaven can somehow salvage its standing to sue. Since attorney J. Malcolm DeVoy IV of Randazza Legal Group represented Leon for just the 45-minute April 20 hearing, the bulk of his $3,815 fee award for 13.8 hours of work was for time spent unsuccessfully negotiating the fee issue with Righthaven and then drafting and filing the motion for fees. "Plaintiff (Righthaven) opposes any attorney’s fees being awarded to Mr. DeVoy or Randazza Legal Group because it was plaintiff counsel’s understanding that any award of attorney’s fees would be directed to a charitable organization since Mr. DeVoy was representing defendant Leon on a pro bono (free) basis,’’ Navarro wrote in her order. "The court finds that it would be appropriate to award attorney’s fees to the law firm in light of the pro bono representation of defendant Leon,’’ Navarro wrote, citing case law that denying attorney’s fees would discourage pro bono representation. Navarro has yet to rule on Nichols’ motion that she be reimbursed for her $1,500-$1,600 in legal fees. Nichols says the no-warning Righthaven lawsuit has worsened her health problems, but Righthaven calls her fee request a demand for "blood money’’ as it dropped the suit against her with prejudice, meaning she can’t be sued again. Righthaven observer Eric Goldman at the Santa Clara University School of Law in California noted that because Righthaven had previously agreed to pay some fees in the Leon case, potentially to a charity, Navarro's ruling "doesn't represent a judicial condemnation of Righthaven's practices." "Nevertheless, Righthaven's failure to properly serve Leon is yet another costly but avoidable litigation error made by Righthaven. I don't know if it's their staff turnover, general incompetence or something else, but Righthaven has made a surprisingly high number of unforced errors for a company whose sole business is litigation," said Goldman, associate professor and director of the university's High Tech Law Institute. "There are several Righthaven defendants' motions for fee shifts under copyright's fee-shifting statutes. There are also some pending sanction motions against Righthaven that could further require Righthaven to pay the defendants. This case's relatively small award of attorneys' fees won't break Righthaven's bank, but I think it symbolically represents that Righthaven's profitability has crested. Going forward, I predict Righthaven's cash meter will start running in reverse with some frequency as judges make Righthaven write checks to its defendants. How many of those checks will Righthaven write until it acknowledges that it has no chance of profitability?" Goldman asked. The fee ruling was one of four legal headaches that emerged Tuesday that Righthaven will have to deal with. On top of Randazza Legal Group’s application for $34,000 in fees for successfully representing Righthaven defendant Wayne Hoehn, attorneys for South Carolina Righthaven defendant Dana Eiser filed a new motion for dismissal in federal court there asking that they, too, be awarded attorney’s fees should they prevail. Also Tuesday, one of Eiser’s attorneys, Todd Kincannon, and his group, Citizens Against Litigation Abuse Inc., were allowed to participate as a friend of the court in a second pivotal Righthaven case in Las Vegas. U.S. District Judge Roger Hunt allowed Kincannon’s group to file a brief in the Democratic Underground case – a key lawsuit in which Hunt first found Righthaven lacks standing to sue and then threatened Righthaven with sanctions. A hearing on potential sanctions in that case is now set for July 14. U.S. District Judge James Mahan earlier ruled Kincannon’s organization could participate in the high-profile Pahrump Life case. In both cases, Kincannon and Citizens Against Litigation Abuse will be arguing that Righthaven – by seeking lawsuit assignments and sharing lawsuit revenue with its media partners -- has been practicing law without a license. Righthaven has not yet responded to these assertions. vegasinc.com