Court Concludes -- In No Uncertain Terms -- That Righthaven Lacked Standing to Sue for Copyright Infringement
Righthaven--the plaintiff in hundreds of copyright infringement suits--suffered a resounding defeat yesterday when the chief judge for the federal district court in Nevada held that Righthaven did not have standing to assert a copyright infringement claim.
In an opinion that left no doubt that the court was less than impressed with Righthaven's arguments and conduct, the court concluded that the agreement which detailed the rights of the parties with respect to the copyright assignments under which Righthaven claimed the right to sue only gave Righthaven "the bare right to bring and profit from copyright infringement actions." That conclusion was clear, the court found, from the unambiguous language of the Strategic Alliance Agreement ("SAA"):
7.2 Despite any such Copyright Assignment, Stephens Media [the alleged copyright assignor] shall retain (and is hereby granted by Righthaven) an exclusive license to Exploit the Stephens Media Assigned Copyrights for any lawful purpose whatsoever and Righthaven shall have no right or license to Exploit or participate in the receipt of royalties from the Exploitation of the Stephens Media Assigned Copyrights other than the right to proceeds in association with a Recovery.
Relying on unambiguous language from the Ninth Circuit sitting en banc, the district court readily concluded that the mere transfer of the right to sue--apart from any of the exclusive rights of copyright--did not confer standing to sue on Righthaven:
Pursuant to Section 501(b) of the 1976 Copyright Act, . . . only the legal or beneficial owner of an exclusive right under copyright law is entitled, or has standing, to sue for infringement. . . . Section 106 of the Act defines and limits the exclusive rights under copyright law. . . . While these exclusive rights may be transferred and owned separately, the assignment of a bare right to sue is ineffectual because it is not one of the exclusive rights. . . . Since the right to sue is not one of the exclusive rights, transfer solely of the right to sue does not confer standing on the assignee. . . . One can only obtain a right to sue on a copyright if the party also obtains one of the exclusive rights in the copyright. . . . Further, to obtain a right to sue for past infringement, that right must be expressly stated in the assignment.
The court then proceeded to methodically reject each of Righthaven's arguments that, notwithstanding this clear statement of the law, Righthaven still had standing to sue for copyright infringement.
In one such argument, Righthaven contended that courts within the district had already determined that it had standing to sue based on the copyright assignment. That contention did not sit well with the court, however:
At best, this argument is disingenuous. As the undersigned issued one of the orders Righthaven cites for this argument, the undersigned is well aware that Righthaven led the district judges of this district to believe that it was the true owner of the copyright in the relevant news articles. Righthaven did not disclose the true nature of the transaction by disclosing the SAA or Stephens Media's pecuniary interests. As the SAA makes abundantly clear, Stephens Media retained the exclusive rights, never actually transferring them to Righthaven regardless of Righthaven's and Stephens Media's current contentions. Further, Righthaven also failed to disclose Stephens Media in its certificates of interested parties, despite Stephens Media's right to proceeds from these lawsuits.
With respect to the latter point, the court ended its decision with an order directing Righthaven to show cause why it should not be sanctioned for its failure to disclose Stephens Media as an interested party in that case or any of the other approximately 200 cases filed in the district, characterizing that failure as a "flagrant misrepresentation to the Court."
Finally, the district court, in denying the motion of defendant Democratic Underground for summary judgment on Righthaven's claim as moot because Righthaven had been dismissed for lack of standing, the court specifically noted that its decision "does not affect Democratic Underground's right to bring a motion for attorney fees under the Act."
The case cite is Righthaven LLC v. Democratic Underground, LLC, Case No. 2:10-cv-01356-RLH-GWF (D. Nev. June 14, 2011).
You can also find more about the case on the EFF's website here.
