Copyright Troll Complains of Defendant's Legal Fees 138
Hugh Pickens writes "Copyright enforcement company Righthaven, accused of coercing defendants into settling with threats of damages of $150,000 and forfeiture of the defendants' website domain names, is complaining that one of its litigation foes is needlessly running up legal costs that Righthaven may end up having to pay. In one of its more extensively-litigated cases, Righthaven sued the Democratic Underground last year after a message-board poster re-posted the first four paragraphs of a 34-paragraph Review-Journal story. After suffering a fair-use setback in another case involving a partial story post, Righthaven tried to drop its suit against the Democratic Underground, which would have resulted in a finding of 'no infringement.' But the Democratic Underground is pressing for Righthaven to pay its attorney's fees and says new evidence had surfaced that would bolster their case. 'Defendants agree that this case should be over — indeed, it should never have started. But it should not end until Righthaven is called to account for the cost of the defense it provoked,' say attorneys for the EFF. 'To allow Righthaven to avoid compensating those who have no choice but to defend would be unjust and unsupportable.' In related news, Righthaven has filed five more lawsuits, bringing their total since March 2010 to 246 lawsuits."
good! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Justice works both ways (Score:5, Informative)
I don't think it will be hard to prove "bad faith" considering Righthaven look for rights violations, and then buy up the Copyright license before suing. They also apparently haven't really transferred the Copyright rights correctly. Fuck them in their stupid asses.