Fair Use Fridays: Is Copyright Troll Righthaven Dead?

Righthaven LLC has garnered headlines for suing companies and individuals that use copyrighted content online.   Known as a "copyright troll"  Righthaven pursued many instances of quoting or using copyrighted materials that many considered to be considered "fair use" under copyright's fair use doctrine.

"Fair use" is codified at 17 U.S.C. Section 107 as an exception to copyright infringement, but it is famously ill-defined.

Here is an article from the Las Vegas Sun on a judge ordering Righthaven's copyright assets to be auctioned by a receiver.

Today Vegas Inc reported here that Righthaven will ask the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to block the auction.

Here from ALM Corporate Counsel is some detail on one of the over 200 cases filed by Righthaven.  In Righthaven LLC v. Democratic Underground (motion here) Righthaven sued over a five-sentence excerpt of a news article that was posted by a political discussion group.

Here from Techdirt we have coverage of Righthaven appealing to the Ninth Circuit from a ruling that copying of an entire work can be fair use, together with a link here to the brief.

Check out www.righthavenlawsuits.com for more.   Righthaven Victims blog here reports that Righthaven has been required to pay $225,172.15 so far in sanctions.


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