Righthaven Hit With Class Action Counterclaim 91
Hugh Pickens writes "Steve Green reports that one of the website operators accused of copyright infringement by Righthaven has retaliated, hitting the Las Vegas company with a class-action counterclaim, charging that defendants in all 57 Righthaven cases in Colorado 'are victims of extortion litigation by Righthaven, which has made such extortion litigation a part of its, if not its entire, business model.' The counterclaim says Righthaven has victimized defendants by failing to send takedown notices prior to suing, by threatening to take their website domain names when that's not provided for under the federal Copyright Act, by falsely claiming it owns the copyrights at issue and by failing to investigate jurisdictional and fair use issues before suing, among other things. The claim seeks an adjudication that Righthaven's copyright infringement lawsuits amount to unfair and deceptive trade practices under Colorado law, an injunction permanently enjoining Righthaven from continuing the alleged unfair and deceptive trade practices, an unspecified financial award to the class-action plaintiffs for damages as well as their costs and attorney's fees."
One more thing they should have asked for (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Live by the sword... (Score:3, Insightful)
...Die by the sword. Let's all hope it works out and Righthaven gets justly crushed.
There's a reason it's basically a shell company, and doesn't own any of the rights...
Re:Takedown notices (Score:4, Insightful)
It is perfectly acceptable to sue without prior notice.
You are confusing legal with acceptable. If you don't like your neighbor and there is a tree growing over the property line that you want cut down and you know he would like to keep, if you sue and the judge asks you if you even spoke with the neighbor regarding the issue, it's expected that the judge would dismiss the case without prejudice before hearing any testimony. He doesn't care who is right, if you haven't tried reasonable steps to resolve the issue, then he won't hear it. If you then talk to your neighbor and the issue isn't resolved and it comes back in front of him, then he'll hear it.
Or, in your terms, it's perfectly acceptable for the judge to dismiss all lawsuits presented before him that were filed without prior notice.