Since my firm is engaged in quite a few cases against Righthaven, I want to limit my comments. But, fortunately, this blog post from Righthaven Victims seems to say it all.
Essentially, the Court thought that Righthaven deserved to be sanctioned for its disingenuous copyright “assignments” and failing to disclose the fact that Stephens Media was a 50% stakeholder in any judgments that Righthaven might collect. The Court asked Righthaven to tell the Court why it should not be sanctioned. Righthaven’s excuse was pretty much “the dog ate my homework.” They threw former Righthaven lawyers Charles Coons and Joseph Chu under the bus — blaming them for the “omission.” (Resp. at 3).
However, as Steve Green points out at Vegas Inc., Steve Gibson, the CEO of Righthaven might have some responsibility that he’s not exactly rushing to accept:
Ninety-eight. That’s the number of Righthaven LLC copyright infringement lawsuits in which Righthaven CEO Steven Gibson was one of the attorneys of record for his own company.
That information wasn’t reflected in Wednesday’s Righthaven court filing in which Las Vegas-based Righthaven said it and its attorneys – current and former – shouldn’t be sanctioned for failing to disclose Las Vegas Review-Journal owner Stephens Media LLC is an interested party in its suits over R-J material. (source)
