Donald Douglas recounts his tale of being sued by copyright-lawsuit factory Righthaven, Beating Righthaven.
I was aware that Donald had been sued along with dozens of others for running the infamous photo of the TSA worker checking the junk of a passenger. I didn’t blog about it because I figured if Donald wanted publicity, he would have posted about it, which he now has.
Here’s an excerpt, check out the full account at the link:
Let me tell you: It’s frightening as hell opening up that letter of service and reading the lawsuit. You can’t even believe you’re being sued, but you can’t ignore it or wish it away. A non-response would result in a default judgment, so there’s no time to dilly-dally. No wonder so many defendants settled out of court rather than attempt a legal defense, especially since obtaining legal counsel and going to trial would probably run into the tens of thousands of dollars on average. I first found out about the lawsuit from Steven Green of the Las Vegas Sun, who left me message on Facebook and then the link to this article mentioning me as a defendant.
Righthaven’s model is entirely predatory, and the company soon earned everlasting enmity by filing lawsuits against folks who were unemployed, on public assistance or disabled.
Nice to see the good guys win for a change.
Update: Highly recommended, attorney Ronald Coleman, What “Beating Righthaven” means.
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Comments
Indeed! Part of me could wish it wasn’t just money though.
Feel good post of the day! Congratulations to Donald Douglas!
Any possibility that if Righthaven tries to hold out a little longer that the really nice judge might let the Marshall’s perform a public flogging? Not that having every blogger and PR person in the know universe high fiving the ruling isn’t pretty close to one.
1. Huzzah for the good guys!
2. Righthaven lost because it is a small troll that had to sue under existing law. A big troll is able to get the law changed for its convenience.
3. Case in point: Hollywood’s ongoing attempts, with the connivance of both major parties, to suborn the Internet (maybe they can buy the technology from China). The libertarian Electronic Frontier Foundation comments on the latest effort; Silicon Valley Representative Zoe Lofgren comments here.
3. Copyright and other forms of intellectual monopoly are legitimate, Constitutionally sanctioned constructs. However, public and corporate interests are badly out of balance when Big Media continues to collect royalties on a seventy-year-old movie like The Wizard of Oz. We’re seeing confiscation of the public domain by government-abetted corporate kleptocrats.
4. Important Republicans like Orrin Hatch and Marco Rubio are involved despite Hollywood’s enmity to the GOP. This supports the saying that the Democrats are evil and the Republicans are evil and stupid.
5. To repeat: if the current bills pass, Big Publishing may lobby for its own bill. Moreover, I wonder if Righthaven might have met a different fate had the powers in the pro-Hollywood legislation been available to it.
I permanently blocked all the publications associated with the Righthaven lawsuit, so these entities would never benefit from my viewership. I am thrilled to learn this result, as one of our local Tea Party heroes – Chandler’s Watch — was also sued.
Thanks, Bill. That was like an Instalanche! But, you know … smaller.
GS’s comment is right on the money. My post is the same thing, but longer and full of jargon.