Auction of Copyright Troll Righthaven's Website Underway 63
Tootech sends this quote from Vegas Inc:
"The online auction of the righthaven.com website domain name got underway Monday, with bidders having until Jan. 6 to submit offers. A judge has authorized a receiver to auction the intellectual property of Las Vegas-based Righthaven LLC, the newspaper copyright infringement lawsuit filer. The auction is aimed at raising money to cover part of Righthaven's $63,720 debt to a man who defeated Righthaven in court. The man, Wayne Hoehn, and his attorneys defeated Righthaven when a judge threw out Righthaven's lawsuit against him over Hoehn's unauthorized post on a sports betting website message board of a Las Vegas Review-Journal column by columnist and former publisher Sherman Frederick. Hoehn was a defendant in one of Righthaven's 275 lawsuits filed since March 2010."
What? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:What? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because they might have an idea that uses a domain called RightHaven? Perhaps a RPG game, perhaps a software application for big business. Who cares - as long as the company is getting gutted to pay for the money it has to cover.
Having said that, I am personally much more interested in finding out whether once the IP within that shell of a shell company runs out and the money is still missing, whether Big Media will be covering the shortfall as they were clearly setting the operation up as a source of income. Surely they will be held liable for the shortfall? Can I get this as a late Christmas present from the US justice system?
Re:shell of a shell (Score:5, Interesting)
You know what, you're right. This ended "way too fast". Look at SCO - someone(s) funded that zombie forever. Here they're doing the opposite strategy. "Ha Ha, if we win, be strike gold, if we lose, oops, we had no assets."
I'd like this to be bought by someone with a BIG pocket and use it to go after when the media companies themselves decide wholesale infringement is just dandy.
Really, they crumbled for just 60K+ ? Really? Tell me which species of fish that is smelling here. Red Herring?
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Righthaven had absolutely nothing to do with patents, they represented copyright holders. And their cases were thrown out because they didn't own the copyrights, so how on earth are they going to sell something they don't own?
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What? (Score:5, Interesting)
This is like any other auction. They have something you may want, and by auctioning it you see if you can get it for the price people are willing to pay. Quite often in cases of bankruptcy or debt recovery the item being auctioned off can be tremendously undervalued.
Recently we went to the auction of a glass manufacturer. Most people were there looking for glassing equipment to boost their own businesses. Things like forming and cutting machines were being bided up quite high. But then they came to old stock. Seems like there weren't too many people interested in it so we picked up 50 sheets of hardened pool fencing glass for $50. They normally cost $160 per sheet. Bargain, we now have a new fence.
This isn't about the company. It's about you, your ideas, and what you could do with the assets of the company. If you have a use for the name "RightHaven" then now is THE time to buy the domain. Chances are if you wanted it and approached the company for it they may have said flat out no, or asked for some extortionate price. Now that they must sell you could potentially get it for a bargain since the name no longer has any value to the company.
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They seized the domain as an asset. The same thing would be done if the defendants were a brick and mortar - goods would be seized and auctioned in much the same way.
Re:What? (Score:5, Informative)
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This is stage 1 of debt recovery, stage 2 is go after the directors. Whilst another court battle is required, as the directors are lawyers, they are screwed when they try to argue they carried out due diligence in their court room failure. They very well might have the personal assets to cover the debts plus the additional court costs of pursue those assets and demonstrating their lack of due diligence in pursuing those court cases.
You aren't paying them (Score:3, Insightful)
You are paying their creditors, which would include people who have legal judgements against them. When someone goes insolvent, their creditors get fucked. However they can usually recover some of what they lost when assets are auctioned off.
As an example when MPC went under, the university I work at was a "creditor" of sorts. We had systems with outstanding warranties on them and those have value. So we got a letter from the bankruptcy court letting us know what all was going on. We didn't expect to get an
Re: (Score:2)
You make a good point, but there is a good chance that Righthaven's creditors also include the media outlets that financed and employed Righthaven.
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Why on earth would anyone want to help pay down those ass-holes debt?
The man who is owed $63,000 can bid up to $63,000 without it costing him anything, and then put on the website whatever he likes.
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It doesn't quite work like that. He would actually have to pay the $63K, at which point the receivers would pay him - but if receivership is anything like over here, the highest priority creditor is the receiver itself - meaning he may lose that $63K completely.
Community funding? (Score:1)
The community would rather fund open source projects. We all know only large media companies (other copyright trolls) will place bids.
possible bidders (Score:1)
Social networking site for fascists.
Store that only sells implements for 'righties'.
A blog for pedants.
Re:possible bidders (Score:5, Funny)
Goatse mirror, for obvious reasons.
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Redirect to www.thepiratebay.org, for equally obvious reasons.
The less that is bid... (Score:5, Interesting)
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I'm sure this is a silly question... (Score:3)
... but why would you want to buy righthaven.com? Really, what possible value could it have?
Re:I'm sure this is a silly question... (Score:5, Insightful)
Set up an anti-patent advocacy group?
Re:I'm sure this is a silly question... (Score:5, Interesting)
... but why would you want to buy righthaven.com? Really, what possible value could it have?
Righthaven owe a lot of money due to losing the court case and being ordered to pay costs, but they don't have many assets to sell to cover those costs. By purchasing the domain name you would, in a sense, be donating to the person who fought Righthaven in court and won - doing us all a favour in the process.
Peace,
Andy.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You would be FAR better off donating to the victim directly, rather than letting the lawyers get any of it and do RH a favor
Re:I'm sure this is a silly question... (Score:5, Informative)
Depends if you have a product or a company called RightHaven. Just because it belonged to one company doesn't mean there isn't some other company very interested in the name. The most classic example of this would be www.nissan.com [nissan.com] which any reasonably person would think took you to the website of the car manufacturer.
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That link has convinced me to never buy a Nissan car.
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But would you buy a Datsun?
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Would you really want such a poisonous association, though?
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Not me, I'm wondering nissanusa.com doesn't lead me to a computer store. Nissan Computers [nissan.com] has been around way before Datsun changed their name to Nissan, and at least the computer store is a USA company. He should sue them.....and win.
Re: (Score:2)
Already done. Nissan sued Uzi Nissan and lost.
Re:I'm sure this is a silly question... (Score:4, Insightful)
... but why would you want to buy righthaven.com? Really, what possible value could it have?
Er.. for the 99.999% of the world that have never heard of Righthaven, it is a cool sounding Fantasy/Sci Fi/Heavy Metal type name, and .com domains made up of real words are quite scarce these days. If I was a publisher I'd look at buying it for a future book/tv/movie/album release. I wouldn't pay much for it, but it'd have fetch a few hundred bucks at least.
Re: (Score:2)
A pirate bay style torrent site for ebooks and articles would be funny.
Nice. You could buy the domain and just redirect to Pirate Bay. Maybe with an ICE-style "redirecting..." page that said "This domain has been seized because the copyright trolls who were ripping people off also tried to rip their creditors off." That'd be worth a couple of bucks.
Re: (Score:3)
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I'd buy it just for the lolz, if I could find the damn link where you can actually post an offer.
Re:I'm sure this is a silly question... (Score:5, Informative)
I'd buy it just for the lolz, if I could find the damn link where you can actually post an offer.
Minimum bid as of this posting is $1900. Snap Names [snapnames.com]
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Thanks for the link. I think I'll pass, that's a little beyond what the lolz is worth to me. But interesting to see that there are 9 interested parties already.
I wonder how many of them are shills for the RightHaven trolls.
Re:I'm sure this is a silly question... (Score:5, Funny)
My name is Rig H. Thaven. This is perfect!
Re:I'm sure this is a silly question... (Score:5, Interesting)
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I think it would be awesome to turn it into a torrent tracker.
Hate Magnet? (Score:1)
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Ocean Marketing might be able to help there
You can bid too! (Score:3)
https://www.snapnames.com/store/extended.action?ig=986#store;storeName=extended [snapnames.com]
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If you win, it's transferred to whatever registrar you use. You don't just get the login to the account it came from or anything.
And better yet, it's court ordered so it's illegal for GoDaddy to hinder your transfer. Pissing RightHaven AND GoDaddy off? Sounds like it's worth it!
Only $64k in debt... (Score:3)
I find it insightful to see a "company" like this who was going after MILLIONS in so-called damages, is suddenly struggling to pay a paltry $64k debt. And all I can say is... BWAHAHAHAHA! There *can* be justice in this world.
Re:Only $64k in debt... (Score:5, Insightful)
I find it insightful to see a "company" like this who was going after MILLIONS in so-called damages, is suddenly struggling to pay a paltry $64k debt. And all I can say is... BWAHAHAHAHA! There *can* be justice in this world.
You are wrong, this is actually a case of _injustice_, brought to you by the corporate system and the inherent liability asymmetry that it creates. Think about it, Mr. Hoenh is owed $64k, most of which would be for his legal costs - costs that he rightfully deserves to recover since his time was wasted by this frivolous lawsuit. Instead, Mr. Hoenh in all likelihood will have to suffer an injustice because righthaven inc./corp./whatever will be unable to satisfy this debt and the person pulling the strings behind Righthaven will not be personally liable unless Mr. Hoenh goes to court again to pierce the corporate veil, thus incurring even more legal costs. IMO, Hoenh's court award will turn out to be an empty judgement and much cold comfort to him.
I'll go as high as $6.95/year. (Score:2)
But I want it to include a date with Danica Patrick.
My Bid (Score:2)
TPB? (Score:1)
I'd love to see the Pirate Bay nab this one and have it redirect to their site. Ideally, they get it for less than $100....
Can't help but notice (Score:2)
Boycott the RJ (Score:3)
Those of you in Vegas know you have two newspapers, the RJ and the Sun.
The Denver Post cancelled their contract with Righthaven while the RJ rewrote their contract with Righthaven such that it now has ownership and can sue as proxy.
If I were you I would not support the scum at the RJ - or their advertisers - who support this type of chilling effect on free speech.