We've commented (carefully) about Righthaven before but no comment is quite so on point and satisfying as typing an obituary.
Righthaven, as you may know, was a legal firm set up by the Las Vegas Journal Review and the Denver Post to troll for "copyright infringements," which included quoting any text, even attributed text with links back to original posts and photographs that have been widely disseminated around the web without a signature (whose stupid fault was THAT?) for which many people were sued. In other worlds this is called "citing" as in "research" as in court approved "fair use" in addition to "world wide WEB" which indicates a preference for WEBBING.Some people didn't care for that, uh, business model, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation who sued and have been whittling away at the initial power Righthaven had to bilk innocent posters, like penniless old ladies who write about cats.
Their obituary consists of, ironically, the loss of their domain name which is going up for auction, something Righthaven demanded when they threatened to sue their little victims.
The cat lady's story is pretty sad, excerpted from the Las Vegas Sun. Steve Gibson is the Righthaven troll lawyer:
Wong, who isn't represented by an attorney, told the court in a letter that she gave the Review-Journal full credit and a link to the Review-Journal website, and that the story was removed from her blog after she learned she was being sued.
[SNIP]
Gibson said Righthaven's costs in the case would likely total up to $1,800 including the court filing fee, an expedited copyright registration, costs to serve Wong, legal work and office overhead.
"That would be a low settlement for us," said Gibson, who typically demands damages of $75,000 and forfeiture of website names but has been known to settle for $5,000 or less and lets settling defendants keep their website names.
"It's a lot for me," Wong, 57, said of the $1,800, adding she's unemployed and receives financial support from a companion.
Upon learning of her situation, and despite "what we feel is clearly copyright infringement," Gibson said he would settle for less, but didn't name an amount. He did amend his statement about Righthaven's costs as likely coming in at $1,300 to $1,500 rather than the $1,800.That's right. Gibson grandly and generously agreed to the penniless woman's fine being slightly reduced.
Over at the Las Vegas Sun, we note Monsieur Gibson's smile, his confident attitude, the lavish but modishly disordered office.
Note also that Msr. Gibson is so busy suing cat ladies that he cannot take the time to remove his headset in case someone really important called during the Sun interview to tell him about, perhaps, a penniless little old man who was writing about parrots or such, with links and needed to be sued.
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| Las Vegas Sun |
Rest in, well, hell.
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