Another Dismissal Handed to Righthaven Based on a Lack of Standing
Another Righthaven copyright infringement case before the District of Nevada is headed for closed case status.
Yesterday, another judge from the District of Nevada granted defendant Dean Mostofi's motion to dismiss based on Righthaven's lack of standing.
The Court's standing analysis mirrored that of earlier decisions (see here, here and here): to have standing to sue for copyright infringement, a plaintiff must be the owner of one of the exclusive rights of copyright and the bare right to sue for infringement is not one of those rights. Here, the agreement defining the relationship between Righthaven and the original owner of the copyrights with respect to the copyrights (the Strategic Alliance Agreement ("SAA")) "expressly denies Righthaven any right from future assignments other than the bare right to bring and profit from a copyright infringement action."
The Court also declined to consider amendments to the SAA made since the filing of the complaint in the action, stating that the existence of federal jurisdiction is generally determined based upon the facts as they exist at the time the complaint was filed.
Additionally, the Court concluded that even if it were to consider the SAA amendments, "these cosmetic adjustments do not alter the fact that Plaintiff has failed to sufficiently allege whether or not Stephens Media assigned the copyrighted Work to Righthaven pursuant to the SAA, as amended or not."
Thus, "[b]ecause the SAA prevents Plaintiff from obtaining any of the exclusive rights necessary to maintain standing in a copyright infringement action and because Plaintiff fails to sufficiently allege an assignment of rights from Stephens Media to Plaintiff, the Court finds that Plaintiff lacks standing in this case."
Complaint dismissed.
The case cite is Righthaven LLC v. Mostofi, No. 2:10-CV-1066-KJD-GWF (D. Nev. July 13, 2011).
